


In Your Orbit

by gray_autumn_sky



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Love From OQ 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 15:22:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17789876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gray_autumn_sky/pseuds/gray_autumn_sky
Summary: After a drunken encounter, Regina Mills and Robin Locksley both agree that they're not quite ready for a relationship, but fate seems to disagree.





	In Your Orbit

Mal leans back, narrowing her eyes as she takes a sip of her wine as Regina bristles, hating the way she’s feeling and hating the way her life has seemingly spun out of her control. **  
**

“Look,” Mal says, still clearly lost in thought. “I think we just need to… turn this whole situation around.”

“Turn it around?” Regina asks, her brows jutting up skeptically. “My husband left me and took my child.”

“Okay, he didn’t  _take_ him… exactly.”

“No?”

“Regina, it’s called joint-custody. Henry will be back before you know it and—”

“And what if he wants to stay?” Regina asks, cutting in as her voice drops. “What if… what if Henry decides that he’s happier wrangling cattle and… doing whatever it is that you do on a ranch in Montana than hanging out with his horrible mother who makes him clean his room and eat vegetables and go to bed before his favorite show—”

“Henry loves you… and you have a DVR. He’ll survive.”

Regina frowns. “I’ve recently discovered that love is not always an everlasting feeling.”

“This is different.”

Regina nods and doesn’t respond, instead, she looks down at her drink.

She knows she’s being difficult, and she knows that she’s wallowing in self-pity, but nothing about the last year has been easy. Everyone’s told her that it’d be an adjustment and that she’d get used to it, that the sting would wear off and moving on would just happen naturally; but none of those things proved true. She didn’t feel like she was adjusting and the pain of her divorce hadn’t eased; instead, she was just stuck, left behind to deal with the wreckage.

When it became clear that she wasn’t handling things as well as everyone assumed she should, in addition to anecdotal advice, her friends started to suggest she go and see someone. Initially, she’d balked at the idea—she didn’t need therapy. But little by little, she saw the effect her mood was having on Henry. He was worried about her and he saw through the brave facade she put on whenever friends and family were around. Of course, it was because he saw her in times when no one else did. He saw her when he’d wake up in the middle of the night for a glass of water or to go to the bathroom, and find her still awake, and he saw her reaction when she’d momentarily tear up as an old family picture in his bedroom caught her eye. Slowly, but surely, she noticed that he’d taken down the pictures of himself with Daniel and covered up pictures of the three of them on family vacations that were in a collage frame on his wall. One day, when she was putting away laundry, she found a pile of junk mail addressed to Daniel that Henry had hidden away to keep her from seeing, thinking it might upset her.

She hadn’t seen it coming and she felt like such a fool—and admitting that to a stranger was far too embarrassing. But, for Henry, she was willing to deal with the embarrassment.  

For awhile, she’d begrudgingly gone to a therapist. Doctor Hopper was a friend of a friend of a friend who specialized in family and marriage counseling. He ran a group for newly-divorced women and she’d gone to a handful of sessions. For the most part, she just sat in the back and listened to others’ stories—and chastised herself for missing all of the signs that were probably obvious to everyone but her.

Then, her mother convinced her to stop—after all, needing  _psychiatric_ help was beneath her. She should be stronger, after all, and simply move on.

In some ways, not going to therapy was a relief. She hated going and she hated feeling the way she did when she was there, and she managed to convince herself that the relief she felt outweighed any benefit she might get from it.

“My mother thinks I should date,” Regina says, almost shyly looking up at Mal. “She wants to set me up.”

Biting down on her lip, Mal hesitates. “Okay, well… it’s not… a terrible idea.”

“Mal, I just—”

“But you didn’t  _just_ get divorced. It’s been a year since Daniel left.”

“I know, but we were married for—”

“I’m not saying you should rush off and get married. Just… have some fun.” Leaning forward, she sets down her drink and rests her elbows on the table, grinning. “Do you have a picture of the guy she wants to set you up with?” Regina nods and pulls out her phone, and a moment later, she finds the picture in a string of texts from Cora, and turns the phone toward Mal. She laughs softly when Mal frowns. “Oh. Well… okay, maybe not  _him_ , but…” She laughs again as Mal grabs the phone, staring at the picture, then scrunches her nose and looks at Regina. “How old is this guy?”

Regina shrugs. “I don’t know. He… went to college with my mother,”

“Oh my god,” Mal murmurs. “Does he have an old man name?”

“Leopold,” Regina says. “Leopold Blanchard. He’s an investment banker or… something like that.”

“Okay, well, I was thinking you should find someone and have a summer fling,” Mal says, handing the phone back to Regina. “But that guy doesn’t look  _capable_ of having a fling… well… not without a prescription.”

Regina grins. “I’m not going out with him.”

Mal laughs and leans back again. “The four o’clock specials at Granny’s don’t sound appealing? You could be home and in your pajamas by six.”

“I’m not going out with  _anyone_.”

“It doesn’t have to be serious.”

“I’m not ready.”

“Honestly,” Mal sighs. “When was the last time you got laid?”

Again, Regina bristles. “I’ve been through—”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Mal—”

“Look, all I’m saying is that you’re single and gorgeous and there are a lot of people out there who would love to spend an evening with you… people who could help you to remember what it’s like to feel desirable and—”

“Mal—”

“You’ve got an entire summer to be carefree and have a little fun. You  _deserve_ a little fun.”

“I’m just… not focused on that part of my life right now.”

“Maybe you should be.”

“This year has been really hard and I’m still not… over any of it.”

“I’m not telling you to get over it. I’m telling you—” Mal stops abruptly as her cell phone begins to buzz and Regina watches as she fishes out. “It’s Rose. Hang on. I’ve gotta take this.”

Regina nods as Mal slides out of the booth and answers the phone, quickly making her way to the vestibule in front of the bar where it’s quieter. For a moment, Regina watches her through the window, watching as her face changes and she hopes everything’s alright—then, Mal rounds the corner, likely looking for a quieter spot and Regina’s attention shifts.

Looking around the crowded bar, it seems all she sees are couples.

Couples sitting across from each other eating buffalo wings and drinking beers, couples dancing on the tiny dance floor and couples thumping through the jukebox selections. There’s a man sitting at the bar with his arm loosely folded around a woman’s waist, listening intently as she talks, across from them on the opposite end of the bar another couple laughs together, as another tosses a few bills down on the bar and their hands entwine as they move to leave for the night.

She can’t remember the last time she and Daniel did any of those things.

Her chest aches as her eyes shift back to her drink.

It was easier when Henry was home.

He is a busy kid. He plays soccer and baseball. He’s in boy scouts and on the robotics team at school. On Saturday mornings, he takes equestrian lessons which require them to get up before the sun to go to her parents’ house where his horse is kept, and recently, he’d taken up swimming at the local YMCA. That, on top of homework and regular playdates, had kept him—and her—busy. Then, of course, there was the day-to-day things like errands, dinner, and homework. With Henry around, she didn’t have time to dwell on her failed marriage; she had a child to raise.

Then, one night at the end of the May, Daniel called and invited Henry out to Montana for the summer—the  _entire_ summer. By the end of the phone call, Henry was bouncing off the walls with excitement and saying  _no_ would not only make her the bad guy, but as Daniel reminded her, they technically had joint-custody.

He told her that he’d been more than flexible, making it seem like  _she_ was the reason he didn’t see his son as much as he’d like to, ignoring the fact that he’d chosen to move halfway across the country to pursue some silly boyhood dream. She didn't want to fight and she’d managed to cut it down to a month-and-a-half, using Henry’s sports schedule as an excuse for him to be back by mid-July. But nonetheless, by the end of that week, Henry had a one-way plane ticket to Montana and by the start of June, she found herself all alone in a house meant for a family.

“I have to go,” Mal announces as she approaches their table. “I’m so sorry.”

“Is everything okay?”

Mal nods. “I… I think so. We just had a trampoline put in, and apparently, Lily did a flip, not realizing Aurora was on the edge and Rory went flying. Rose thinks it’s just a nasty cut, but—”

“Oh no—”

“She’ll probably need stitches, but she’s okay.”

“And how’s Lily?”

“A mess.”

“Of course.”

“Truthfully, so am I,” Mal says, grabbing her purse, but looking around absently for her keys. “So, I’m going to—”

“Yeah, of course,” Regina says, plucking the keys off of the table. “Call me. Let me know how it goes.”

“I will,” Mal agrees. “Raincheck?”

“Sure.”

“I’m sor—”

“Go!” Regina cuts in, grinning as she waves her off.

“You’re okay? You—”

“I’ll be fine,” Regina assures her, cutting in as she reaches for her half-empty drink. “I’m just going to finish this, then go home and take a bath, maybe go to bed early.”

Mal blinks. “Or… find someone to bring home.”

“You’re just saying that because you drove.”

Mal’s eyes widen. She’d obviously forgotten. “Regina. I’m so sorry. I totally forgot—”

“You’ve got a lot on your mind,” Regina says, cutting in and shaking her head. “It’s fine. I’ll take an Uber. I might grab another drink, anyway.”

“Are you  _sure_? I feel terrible. I just—”

“You didn’t plan this,” Regina says with an easy shrug. “Now, go. One of your kids is bleeding from her head and the other is probably crying her eyes out with guilt over it. Go. Don’t worry about me.”

Mal groans and nods, offering a half-hearted smile and a wave as she turns away—and then, a moment later, she’s gone.

Sighing, Regina leans back in the chair and downs her wine—then, she reaches across the table and pulls Mal’s drink toward her, finishing it off and grimacing at the strength of it. She closes her eyes for a minute and tries not to think about Daniel.

She never went through that period that most of her friends did in college where they flirted with people at parties or casually dated. She and Daniel met just before sophomore year of high school at her parents’ country club. She’d been an avid horse rider and he’d had a summer job in the stables. After that, they’d gone to every homecoming and prom together. She’d liked having a steady boyfriend in high school—it took the pressure off—and just before she left for college, he’d proposed to her. She’d happily accepted and while all her friends were moving into tiny dorm rooms, she and Daniel went hunting for an apartment somewhere between the Ivy League school she’d chosen and the community college he’d chosen. It never occurred to her that she was missing out; instead, it seemed quite the contrary. Then, she’d felt like she had the best of both worlds—and it wasn’t like she wanted to be with anyone else. She could still admire a cute boy in her literature class or notice a pretty girl across from her in line at the cafeteria; she could still giggle with her friends and go to parties hosted by the school’s fraternities; and she could plan a wedding and build a life with her best friend.

She isn’t sure when that changed—when what they had together hadn't been enough—but looking back, she wonders if it was far sooner than either she or Daniel was willing to admit.

Drawing in a breath, she decides on another—this time stronger—drink, and moves to the bar, taking her purse with her. She quickly orders and sits down on a stool to wait, still lost in thought, as she stares blankly at the rows of bottles lining the back of the bar.

It takes her a moment to realize that when the bartender calls out  _whiskey on the rocks_  that it’s her drink, and her breath catches when another hand reaches for the glass, her fingers sliding against his hand.

“Oh, this is my—”

She stops mid-sentence, and her hand seems stuck in its place as she takes in the stranger beside her.

He’s wearing a black t-shirt and a sly little grin that makes her heart skip a beat. He has bright, shining blue eyes that seem to look right through her and when he fumbles through an apology, all she hears is his British accent.

“No, no,” she murmurs, still not letting go of his hand. “It’s my fault.”

“I doubt that,” he tells her. “I wasn’t paying attention. I just ordered. It couldn’t have come up this quick.”

“You ordered a whiskey on the rocks?” she asks, grimacing at the dumbness of the question.

He nods. “It’s generally my drink of choice.”

She nods, then suddenly pulls back her hand at the realization that she’s  _holding_ his hand to the glass. “Mine, too, when I want to get drunk.”

“Girls night?” he asks, his eyes shifting down as she pulls back, finally letting go of him.

“Um, well, it was.”

“Was?”

Regina nods, her eyes shifting back to his—god, she could get lost in those eyes—and a tight little smile draws on to her lips. “My best friend and I were supposed to be having a girls night, but her wife just called. One of the kids got hurt and—”

“Ah, the joys of parenthood.”

“Are you a parent?”

He nods, practically beaming. “I have a son,” he tells her, quickly fishing his wallet out from his back pocket. “He’ll be seven in November.”

“I have a son, too,” she tells him. “Henry will be ten in August.”

“I always wanted a summer birthday,” he tells her as he eases up onto the stool beside her. “Pool parties and all that. It seemed fun.”

“When is your birthday?”

“February.”

“Mine, too,” she says, grinning too widely. “Mine is on the first.”

“Ah, that’s where the similarities stop. Mine is on the twenty-seventh.”

“Better than the twenty-ninth.”

They both laugh and she feels her cheeks warm. She’s giggling like an idiot, but it’s nice, she thinks, as he launches into a story about the dreariness of February and how as a kid, he hated to be stuck inside. She asks what part of England he’s from and he tells her—Essex—and she laughs as he laments about bitter cold air and slushy rain. She nods along, talking about her own experiences of cancelled parties due to wintery mixes and she can’t believe they carry an entire conversation talking only about the weather.

At some point, the bartender delivered his whiskey on the rocks, but neither he nor she has touched their drinks—and she feels a pang of disappointment, when his voice trails off and tells her he shouldn’t keep her from enjoying her evening.

Awkwardly, she offers him a little nod and slides from the stool, but as she turns she notices her table has been claimed, and just as awkwardly, she draws in a breath and admits, he’s really not keeping her from much of anything—and to her surprise, he grins and tells her that’s a relief.

Together, they relocate to the end of the bar where it’s a bit less crowded. They still sit closer—closer than necessary—as they continue to talk and drink, and as he orders them both a third whiskey on the rocks, her breath catches and her chest flutters as his fingers touch her bare knee—she likes the way it feels. She edges closer as she reaches for her drink, finishing what’s left as she waits for the next, and when she does, it pushes his hand up a bit higher. He looks down at his hand, then back to her, and she only grins in acknowledgment before continuing on with their conversation.

It’s been so long since anyone’s flirted with her, much less touched her, and suddenly, she craves it. Mal’s voice rattles around in the back of her head, telling her there’d be no harm in a little fling—and as he leans forward to accept the drinks from the bartender, she leans forward, her lips brushing against his as her hand coasts up over his cheek.

It’s just a quick little peck, but it makes her heart race—and when she pulls back, he’s smiling, and there’s something about the way he’s looking at her with those soft, glittering blue eyes that pulls her back to him, and this time, she goes in for a real kiss.

His lips are warm and taste like whiskey, and his cheeks are stubbly, but soft, and it makes her giggle against him. It takes him a second or two to respond and kiss her back, but when he does, he  _really_ does. One hand skims up over her cheek and tangles in her hair, drawing her closer to him as his other hand slides up her leg and over her hip. His tongue pushes between her lips, swirling around her tongue as he explores her, and suddenly, she feels dizzy and light.

He pulls back for air as they both smile and giggle, and then she dives back in, finding the light pine scent of his cologne intoxicating. Her hands cup his cheeks as his arms fold around her, and she melts in his touch.

She’s never done something like this. She’s never made out with a stranger in a bar, much less entertained thoughts of bringing him home as she does so, but as they kiss, all she can think about is what it’d be like to do more than that. She pictures his fingers slowly tugging at the zipper of her dress and she pictures herself kicking it away as she takes his hands and leads him to her bed, and she imagines the way he’d look at her as he pulls her lacy panties down over her hips and lowers his mouth to her. She imagines needing a moment to catch her breath after coming down from the high of her orgasm and teasing him a bit before returning the favor—and then, she imagines riling him up all over again and letting him have his way with her.

She moans softly as her hand moves to his hip as she shifts herself—and she smiles against his mouth, feeling how hard he is—and as she pulls back, she smiles again, biting down on her lip as she tries to figure out how to ask him to come home with her.

Then, all of the sudden, he pulls back and his demeanor changes.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I can’t do this. I’m… I’m so sorry.”

Swallowing hard, she blinks. “I… it’s fine.”

“No, I shouldn’t have—” He stops, grimacing. “I’m just… I’m not ready for this. I want to be ready, but I’m not.”

She nods. “I get it.”

She can tell he doesn’t believe her, but nonetheless, he nods and again mumbles through an apology as he reaches into his pocket and retrieves his wallet. She watches, feeling awkward as he tosses down two twentys to cover the whiskeys, and she feels a pang of disappointment as he makes his way toward the exit.

She should have known it couldn’t be that easy.

Sighing, she reaches for her untouched whiskey, downing it as she fishes out her phone and orders an Uber; then, tapping her fingers against the bar, she looks at the wait time, and with an indifferent little shrug, she reaches for his untouched drink, drinking it a bit more slowly as she waits for her ride.

By the time her Uber arrives, she’s had another drink and is more than tipsy. Her head is spinning and she feels… well, she’s not entirely sure. It’s a mix of sexual frustration and disappointment, and she’s not quite sure what to do with it. She can still smell his pine-scented aftershave and she can still feel his warm, soft lips, and she can’t seem to stop her mind from wandering to what might’ve happened had he not backed out…

She smiles and hums as a soft vibration tickles her hip, and it takes her more than a second to realize it's her phone in her jacket pocket. She sighs a bit regretfully as she reaches for it and smiles gently as she sees Mal’s name and number flashing across the screen.

“Hullo?” she asks, grimacing at the slurred sound of her voice. “How’s Rory?”

“You’re drunk.”

“I am.”

“You’re home?”

“In an Uber.”

“Oh—”

“How’s Rory?”

“She’s doing good. She had a little gash above her eye.”

“D’she cry at the stitches?”

“Nope. She handled it like a champ,” Mal says, sounding proud. “Lily on the other hand…”

“Oh nooo…”

“She’s devastated. She feels terrible.”

“Of course she does.”

“She’s being dramatic, but—”

“She broke her sister,” Regina cuts in. “She’s not being dramatic. She’s…” Her voice trails off and her brow furrows as she tries to find the right word—and as she considers, Mal laughs. “Upset! That’s what she is.”

“Yes,” Mal says, laughing a bit louder. “I know, she is.”

“She’ll be okay.”

“She will be,” Mal agrees. “Will  _you_ be okay?”

“Ohh, I’m fine.”

“You sound drunk.”

“‘Cuz I am,” she confirms, unnecessarily, as a giggle bubbles up from her chest. “Mal, I made out with a man.”

“Oh?” Mal asks in a curious voice. “Tell me more.”

“He was British and smelled like the forest.”

“The forest—”

“Uh-huh, and he had the most  _gorgeous_ eyes.”

“Oh?”

“Mm, and his arms. Oh my god, Mal…  _his arms_.”

“So, did you get his number?”

Regina frowns. She hadn't thought to ask for it. She hadn’t even gotten his name. “No.”

“Okay, so you made out with him and…”

“He left.”

“He left?”

“He chickened out.”

“Oh—I—what? He chickened out?”

“Yeah,” Regina says, grimacing at the brashness of the word as it falls from her mouth. “Said he wasn’t ready.”

“Oh.”

“He was  _gorgeous_ , though. And a good kisser.” Regina sighs, thinking about the way his lips felt on hers, the way his hands felt on her skin and the way he kept pulling her closer, like he couldn’t get enough of her—and then, she frowns, wishing she hadn’t pulled away. “I wanted to bring him home.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Didn’t have the chance.”

“So, he just… left you high and dry?” Mal asks, laughing softly. “You poor thing.”

“More like low and wet—” Regina snorts as Mal laughs again. “Nothing my vibrator and a movie won’t solve.”

“Oh my god, Regina, you’re in an Uber.”

“What? I’m sure more shocking things have been said in the back of an Uber than that Gillian Anderson got me through the last few years of my marriage, and continues to get me by now that it's over.”

“I just think you should—” Mal stops, her voice catching in her throat. “Wait. Regina. Are you going to masturbate to the  _X-Files_  or did you name your vibrator Gillian Anderson?”

Regina laughs, her head spinning. “Not the  _X-Files_.  _The Turning_ , or, well… just one particular scene, on repeat.”

“Stop talking. You’re going to get kicked out of the car and I don’t want to come and get you. I’m already in my pajamas.”

Regina giggles. “I’m almost home. I could walk.” Looking down at her shoes, she frowns. “In theory.”

Mal sighs. “Or you could come over. Have him turn around and come by. I’ve got a gallon of Rocky Road and a Family Size pack of Oreos. Rose just bought a bunch of cheesy rom-coms on Prime. We’re going to have a girls night in, and forget about everything that happened today. You’ll fit right in.”

Regina grins. “I’d rather have my own girls night… alone. Just me and Gillian.”

“Oh my god—”

“But honestly,” she says, smiling to herself as she breathes out a little sigh of relief as she thinks back to how down she felt at the start of the night and how good it felt to be noticed and kissed and given attention. “I just want to go home and enjoy the idea that a man other than Leopold Blanchard is interested in me.”

“That’s plural, you know. Lots of men would love a chance to be with you, even if this one chickened out.”

“My driver just turned down my street,” Regina sighs as the car slows to turn. “Give the girls my love?”

“Of course,” Mal says. “And, please, give that poor driver five-stars.”

Regina giggles and agrees, ending the call as she grins awkwardly at the driver as he pulls into her driveway. She fumbles with her wallet and pulls out a couple of tens, leaning forward and shoving them into the cupholder next to the driver, and before he can protest, she’s out of the car and stumbling toward the house. And though she’s certain it’s just the whiskey talking, she wonders if Mal wasn’t right before—perhaps a summer on her own does have potential, and maybe by the time Henry comes home, she’ll have found a way to be happy again.

_____

Robin slumps down at the bar and lets out a sigh, his head falling forward as his shoulders slouch.

He feels like a complete idiot.

An hour ago, he was making out with a beautiful woman in a bar across town and now, he is here, at his friend’s bar, ready to drown his sorrows in a beer he hasn’t yet ordered.

“Well, you look like shit.”

Robin looks up as John leans against the bar in front of him. “Thanks.”

“I thought you were going somewhere where no one would talk to you tonight,” John says, feigning an offended scoff. “I distinctly remember you saying you wanted to go somewhere where you could drink in peace without me or anyone else  _meddling_ in your business.”

“I still do,” Robin says, glaring at his best friend.

“So, what happened that brings you here... where  _I_  won’t shut up?”

“I talked to someone.”

John grins. “So, this is all  _your_ fault.”

Robin nods. “Well, I’m certainly not going to blame her for—”

“Her?” John asks, his brows arching as he cuts in. “You talked to a  _her_?”

“Yes, we talked and… uh, some other stuff.”

“Other stuff?”

“We… made out.”

“ _You_ made out with a woman tonight.”

“I did.”

John grins. “So much for drunken solitude.”

“Yeah…”

“So… what’s her name?” Robin blinks as his lips part, and he comes to the realization that he doesn’t know. He’d never asked. His eyes sink closed as John offers a hearty laugh. “Oh, man. You went to a bar and made out with a random girl. I’m… I’m proud of you, you know that?”

Robin’s eyes roll. “Seems like I’m a bit of a cad.”

John’s brows crease again. “I don’t think you know what that means.”

For a moment, Robin doesn’t say anything. None of what happened earlier that night is his style. He doesn’t kiss random women without even learning their names, he doesn’t lead women on only to leave them hanging. He was never one to hook up with random girls in college or casually date. It just wasn’t his thing. He liked being a part of a couple, he liked being committed. Before Marian, he’d only dated a handful of girls, and when he found Marian, it’d been like coming home. They were happy and comfortable, content with each other, and he was relieved that there’d be no more awkward first dates or painful breakups; there’d be no more girlfriends. It’d be the two of them, forever.

After all, he’d found the love of his life—that was, of course, until she found the love of her life.

“So, tell me about her.”

“Hm?” he asks, looking back to John and snapping back into the present moment. “What?”

“Tell me about the girl from the bar. I want to hear about her.”

“Oh…”

He considers it, remembering her deep brown eyes and silky hair, the little scar on her lip and the way he couldn’t help but smile when she laughed. He liked her. Before they’d kissed, he’d thought he’d be content to spend the entire evening talking about nonsensical things like birthday parties, snowstorms, and the lighter side of parenthood; there’d just been such an ease there, an ease that he has rarely experienced.

But he hadn’t been content to do just that, and neither had she.

She was the first woman since Marian he’d been attracted to, and he found himself getting lost in his head, thinking about how much he wanted to touch her skin and taste her lips, wondering if they were as soft as they appeared. He’d been well on his way to drunk by the time he reached for her drink, and the more time he spent in her company, the more intoxicated he became—not from the whiskey, but from her.

The longer they talked, the more daring he became; the draw between them was almost palpable, and he could see that she felt it too. When he reached out and touched his hand to her knee, she didn't pull away. She’d stared at his hand on her knee for a moment, and not once did she try to move away, and when her eyes finally shifted back to his, she seemed to lure him in.

He doesn't remember who leaned in for that first kiss; in fact, everything from that moment onward is mostly a blur to him. But what he does remember is how intoxicating it was—electrifying, yet comfortable—and it wasn’t until she pulled back that he regained his senses.

“She was… stunning,” he says simply, shrugging his shoulders as he struggles with another way to describe her. “She was... stunning in every way.”

John crosses his arms and narrows his eyes. “Oh, god. You’re in love with her.”

“I am not.”

“You make out with someone and all of the sudden—”

“I’m not in love with her,” he cuts in, his voice rising in defense. “I don’t even know her name.”

“You don’t need to know someone’s name to be in love with him.”

“I barely know  _anything_ about this woman. All I’m saying is that she was…”

“Stunning.”

“Beautiful. She was beautiful. That’s about the extent of what I know about her.”

“Right,” John nods, scoffing as he laughs. “You’re such a hopeless romantic.” Robin bristles, his jaw tightening with aggravation. “So, if this woman was so stunning that she left you unable to properly use adjectives—”

“I hate you.”

“I know,” John grins, obviously enjoying himself. “Why are you here talking to me and not with this stunning woman” His brow arches. “You obviously liked her. You obviously felt some sort of chemistry—”

“Whiskey. It was whiskey.”

“The point still stands. You’re here and she’s not. Why is that?”

“Trust me,” Robin sighs. “It wasn’t her fault.”

John grimaces. “You say something dumb?’

“No, I—”

“Did you—”

“I chickened out.”

“Oh.” John frowns. “Why? If she spent half the night making out with you, she was probably into you. So—”

“She’s… not Marian.”

Again, John’s eyes narrow. “I… think, in this case, that’s a good thing.”

“John, I haven’t even so much as looked twice at another woman since I met Marian. Even that year that we broke up, I didn’t date anyone else. I just…”

“Pined,” John supplies as his voice trails off. “I remember. I was there.”

“This isn’t easy. It’s not easy  _not_ being with Marian.”

“Okay,” John says slowly. “I can… empathize with that. I’ve never been with someone longer than a few months, so I don’t really get how you’re feeling, but I can imagine it’s not easy to end a ten year—”

“Eleven years,” Robin says. “We were together for eleven years. Twelve, if you count the one in between.”

“Okay. Still. I don’t know what that’s like, but I do understand that it’s hard and I do understand that it’s not something you necessarily want to do.” Robin only sighs as John leans forward, resting his elbows on the counter. “But, she’s gone. She’s not coming back, and you can’t spend the rest of your life pining over her. She moved on. You need to, too. You deserve better than that, man.”

Robin’s eyes narrow. “Why did I come here?”

“Because you know I won’t let you wallow in whatever funk you’re currently swimming in.”

“My divorce just—”

“Finalized,” John interjects. “It’s final. Done. Game over.”

“I should go—”

“No,” John sighs. “Look. All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t feel guilty because you found some woman in a bar and made out with her. You shouldn’t feel guilty for enjoying it. It’s a  _good_ thing.”

“It doesn’t feel so good,” Robin grumbles, looking away as his jaw tightens. “It feels—”

“New.”

“What?”

“It’s new. You don’t like new. You’ll get used to it, but—”

“It’s not that.”

“No?”

Robin shakes his head. “I… I wanted to ask her back to my apartment. I wanted to maybe suggest we go get some food to soak up all the whiskey we’d been drinking and then… see where things ended up. And then… all of the sudden, I started thinking about what a mess my life is.”

“I doubt she—”

“I’m living out of boxes. I don’t have furniture. I am sleeping on a futon.”

John’s face scrunches. “I thought you were getting a bed and a couch in there.”

“I was,” Robin sighs. “Then, I got to the furniture store and… and I didn’t know what to do.”

“You… pick out some furniture you like and buy it,” John says flatly. “It’s… not that hard.”

“Marian picked out all the stuff in our house.”

“So? It’s your chance to get something that’s more your style.”

Robin’s brow arches. “Do I have a style? Because right now, I’ve got lawn chairs and a futon.”

“Well,  _anything_ would have been better than that.”

Robin nods. “Yeah. I know. But then I started thinking about Roland, and where I’m going to put him—”

“What do you mean?”

“My apartment has  _one_ bedroom. I think it should be Roland’s. He’ll need a place when he comes over and—”

“Not to be callous,” John says slowly, “But that’s… like every other weekend.”

“I know,” Robin frowns.

“So, maybe get one of those pull-out sofas and some dinosaur sheets for it, and set him up with his own Netflix—”

“That’s not a bedroom. That’s not homey.”

“No, but—”

“This sucks.”

“Yeah…”

“But anyway, I just… I started thinking about what it’d be like bringing this gorgeous, sophisticated—”

“She was sophisticated?”

Robin nods. “She was wearing this blue dress. It had this crazy zipper that sort of wound around her and—”

“You noticed the zipper on her dress?” John asks, smirking.

Robin sighs, ignoring the question. “I couldn’t bring her to that apartment.”

“You know… she probably lives somewhere.”

Robin’s eyes roll. “I wasn’t going to invite myself—”

“Maybe she was going to invite you.”

Robin shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t know. I just… there was more to it than just my shitty apartment. I’m just… I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready to be single and out there again, and—”

“But you are.”

Robin glares. “Yeah.”

“So, let’s look at the positives, eh?”

“Positives,” Robin repeats. “I’m not really seeing—”

“Look, you spent a good portion of the evening making out with a  _stunning_ woman. You know what I did tonight? I stopped two little shits from getting into a fight over a pool game, and then after I tossed their asses out, I caught an underaged girl drinking and as I sat with her waiting for her cab, she threw up on my shoes. So, yes, your evening  _does_ sound pretty damn good right now.”

Robin’s nose scrunches. “Did you have to clean it up?”

“Yes.”

“Gross.”

“Incredibly.”

Robin draws in a breath. “Okay. So, the positive is that I didn’t clean up someone else’s vomit.”

“Yes, that’s one,” John says as a soft laugh rises into his voice. “Another is that you managed to go out, you managed to flirt—”

“Not well.”

“It worked on this woman.”

“Did it?” he asks skeptically. “I’m not so—”

“She wouldn’t have spent the night locking lips with you if it hadn’t.”

“She could have been—”

“Regardless,” John cuts in. “You put yourself out there. You found someone you were attracted to, and for awhile, you were able to enjoy that and not—”

“Get in my own way?”

“Exactly.”

“Until I did.”

“Well, you know… baby steps.”

“I guess.”

“Look, a month ago, you couldn’t even look at another woman.”

“I was technically still married.”

John’s eyes roll. “And your wife had already moved in with her girlfriend.”

Robin frowns. “Can we not talk about them?”

“Yeah. Sure. My point is that this is progress. Even if you did chicken out in the end.”

“Maybe. I’m still not ready for—”

“You don’t have to marry the first woman you meet, you know.”

Robin frowns. “I know that, I just—”

“There’s nothing wrong with some casual dating or having a one-night stand here and there.” Robin’s eyes roll and John sighs, pulling himself up and reaching for one of the glass mugs behind the bar as the bell on the door jingles. “Do you  _want_ to meet someone?”

“Truthfully? I don’t know. I just… I don’t want to be alone.”

“So, the opposite of that…” John says as he fills the mug with beer and slides it down the counter to one of his regular customers. “If you don’t want to be alone, you’ve gotta be with someone, and that means you’ve gotta meet someone.”

Robin nods. “It just feels… too soon.”

“It’s been a year since Marian left.”

“In the grand scheme of things, that’s not that long.”

John shrugs. “It is and it isn’t.”

“Feels it.”

“I’m curious,” John begins, moving back toward him and again, leaning against the bar. “Would you have invited her back to your apartment if it didn’t look like an eighteen-year-old college kid lived there?”

“Probably,” Robin admits. “I mean… I’d have likely chickened out at some point, and it probably would have been even more embarrassing, but—”  
  


“Or not.”

“I guess we’ll never know.”

“Let’s go shopping,” John says somewhat abruptly as a sly little grin cross his lips. “This week. Pick a day and we’ll go get you some big-boy furniture.”

Robin blinks. “You make it sound like you’re going to get me a race car bed with rails so I don’t fall out.”

John laughs. “If that’s what you want…”

Robin’s eyes roll. “Yeah. That’ll really impress the ladies.”

“Who knows?” John laughs. “And that’s another positive.”

“A race car bed?”

“No, you admitting that you’d  _like_ to eventually date and bring women back to your apartment.”

“Well, I—”

“Maybe not tonight, but… eventually.”

“Maybe…”

“You’re coming back to life,” John says. “Yet  _another_ positive.”

“I don’t feel very alive. I feel… sort of defeated, and about an hour ago, I wished I could crawl under the nearest table and die.”

John laughs again. “You tried. That’s the positive. A month ago, it wouldn’t even have occurred to you to try.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Hey, you know, we could get one of those partition things,” John says. “Those fake walls. We could make a little room for Roland. It’s not like you need a dining room and—”

“What, like, put a curtain and—”

“Yeah and  _that’s_ where the race car bed will go.”

Robin’s eyes roll, but nonetheless, he laughs. “I think Roland would insist on never coming over again if I got him a toddler’s bed.”

John’s face falls and he looks genuinely confused. “Kindergarteners aren’t toddlers?”

“No, they’re not. And Roland’s in second grade.”

John blinks. “When the fuck did  _that_ happened?”

Robin laughs, shaking his head. “I wish I knew.”

“Alright,” John says, drawing in a breath. “We’ll shop tomorrow. We’ll get you  _and Roland_  big-boy beds, and we’ll get you a real sofa that doesn't have dinosaur sheets on it or look like something you’d find in a frat house, and we’ll get some other stuff that makes it look as though an adult human lives in your apartment and then… the next time you meet a gorgeous, stunning, sophisticated woman, you won’t have to be embarrassed about bringing her home.”

“No, but I’m sure I’ll find another reason.”

John laughs. “But you’ll have one less reason, and  _that_ is another positive.”

Laughing, Robin shakes his head, and finally, he orders that beer, decidingly shifting the conversation away from his failed attempt at having an evening to himself, away from his divorce and sad little apartment and onto the new selection of craft beers on the menu that John is all too eager to talk about… and all the while, he finds himself thinking about the stunning woman he’d missed his chance with.

_____

Regina closes her eyes and draws in a long, deep breath, savoring the steamy, chocolate, coffee smell of her mocha, and pretending that she’s not surrounded by at least twenty other people, chatting and eating, and invading “her” space.

Usually when she’s at Granny’s she’s there with Henry after his Saturday morning swim practice, and it’s not until they’re leaving that the weekend breakfast crowd starts to come in. For the most part, they have the place to themselves. Henry orders something that she’d normally never let him have—like strawberry-stuffed waffles—and she, too, lets herself indulge in a mocha alongside her oatmeal and berries. For a while, it’d been their thing—and she hadn’t realized how much she looked forward to it until it didn’t happen, and when she realized it wouldn’t be happening again for the foreseeable future, she found herself sadder than any reasonable person should be.

But really, it was just another unexpected casualty that’d come along with her divorce.

It hadn’t been long before her headache had set in and she’d crawled into bed, deciding she’d sleep the morning away—after all, it’s not like she had a child to feed and cart around from activity to activity. But just as she’d been dozing, there’d been a knock at the door. Sleepily, she’d made her way down the stairs and, without looking, she’d opened the door—and immediately, regret washed over her.

Her mother breezed past her with a slew of contractors behind her. She started barking orders and pointing in all different directions, and Regina watched in horror as they marched upstairs to her bedroom. Soon, a tarp was laid over the carpet and buckets of paint were being opened while her towels and toiletries were being cast out of their places—and suddenly, the self-inflicted headache she hadn’t been entirely sure was real was  _very_ real.

Cora explained that she was doing her a favor, and when Regina still didn’t understand, Cora offered an exasperated sigh before explaining that the last time Regina was over she made a comment about ridding Daniel from the house, and that’s exactly what she was doing. Regina’s eyes widened as she looked to the bathroom, and a memory of her and Daniel painting it light blue when they’d first moved in flickered behind her eyes. He’d let her choose the color and she’d picked it because it made her feel calm—something they both agreed was a good thing. Years later, Henry picked out the fish-adorned shower curtain and matching bath mat, and she’d been impressed that he’d chosen something in muted blues and greens, rather than something with more colorful fish. A couple of years later, he made her a jar with seashells glued to it to set out on the counter for her makeup brushes. Of all the rooms in the house, that bathroom was the only one that didn’t remind her of Daniel; it reminded her of Henry.

But, really, none of that mattered and as she watched one of the contractors start to smear the new shade of paint onto the walls, she’d admitted that it could use some sprucing up—even if it was being spruced up with a pale lavender paint that was basically white.

She’d made up an excuse to leave—errands to run—and Cora agreed to stay and make sure the contractors she’d hired didn’t make off with her jewelry.

She made a quick stop at the market, picking out some vegetables and a loaf of homemade bread, then ended up at Granny’s. She felt a little bad camping out with her tablet, playing word search games and Candy Crush, but she fully intended to order more than one expensive coffee drink and leave a generous tip to make up for taking up space at such a busy time.

Blinking up, she’s only vaguely aware that the door’s opened—and then, as she looks up, she spots the man she’d ended up drunkenly kissing at the bar earlier that week.  _Oh my god,_  she whispers, trying her best to slink down and hide behind her tablet.

If she was smart, she’d simply make herself look busy; but for whatever reason, she can’t quite look away.

He’s wearing a blue t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and in the natural light, she can see there’s more gray in his hair than she realized, especially around the temples. He grins as he orders something, and she feels herself swoon a bit as she notices his dimples—then, all of the sudden, all she can think about is how warm and soft his lips were, how his fingers had pressed into her thigh, the way his scruffy cheeks had tickled her.

Granny reaches across the counter to give him his change, and he turns awkwardly—and almost immediately, her head drops, focusing on her tablet in hopes that he didn’t notice her staring. Her eyes pinch closed and she grimaces as she hears footsteps coming toward her—and then, slowly, she looks back up to see him standing in front of her, his fingers awkwardly skimming over the top of the empty chair.

“Um, hi…”

“Hi,” she replies, hating that her cheeks are flushing.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me, but… uh, judging by your response, you do.”

She nods. “Well, I wasn’t so drunk that I don’t remember.”

“Right,” he murmurs. “About that—” She shifts, ready to tell them this isn’t something they need to discuss, but she doesn’t get the change. “I… want to apologize.”

“You don’t need to—”

“No,” he cuts in. “I do. I led you on and—”

“You didn’t—”

“Well, I feel like I did. It’s just… I’m not good at this. I don’t… do this.” He grimaces, his eyes pressing closed and his brow furrowing in a way that’s all too adorable. “It’s been a decade since I’ve dated. I don’t know the rules anymore, and—”

He stops, shaking his head—and again, she finds his awkward embarrassment incredibly endearing, and if she’s being honest, a little sexy.

“I just got divorced and people keep telling me I need to put myself out there, and… the other night, I put myself out there a little too much, and… and that wasn’t fair to you.” He stops somewhat abruptly and shifts on his feet as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “I, uh… I had just been thinking about that and… and then I saw you, and figured, um…”

“That you were meant to apologize?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, apology accepted, and… for what it’s worth, I get it. I’m very recently divorced, too, and—”

“It sucks.”

“Yeah,” she nods, laughing softly. “It really does.” Biting down on her lip, he watches as Granny presses a cap to his coffee, and she knows in just a few seconds, Granny will call out his name and a few seconds after that, he’ll be gone. “I’m Regina,” she says, holding out her hand.

“Robin,” he tells her, slowly reaching out to shake her head. “It’s, uh…” He laughs out in a burst and she can’t help but smile. “I suppose  _meet you_  isn’t quite right, but—”

“It works, I think.”

“Yeah—”

“Do you… want to sit down?” she asks, holding her breath as she waits for his reply. “It’s just… it’s crowded and—”

“Yeah,” he’s quick to say. “I think I would.”

She watches as he pulls out the chair, then looks past him, waving Granny over to the table with his coffee. “My son and I come here—”

“Mine, too,” he tells her. “Or, well, we have a couple of times. He likes it, and I like letting him eat sugary breakfasts his mother would disapprove of.”

Granny brings his coffee over, and they both smile and thank her.

“How old is your son?” she asks. “I know you told me, but… that’s a bit hazy.”

“Seven.”

“Mine’s ten.”

He nods. “A swimmer, right?”

“Yes,” she says, brightening. “And a soccer player and a robotics nerd,” she laughs. “Those are his words, not mine.”

“Roland would  _love_ robotics,” Robin tells her. “My wife and I got him—” He stops, frowning.

He doesn't have to explain. She knows why he stopped. She’s done it herself a million times.

“It’s hard, isn’t it? Remembering the things you used to do? Things that… were so normal and ordinary are suddenly something that can change your mood entirely and nearly bring you to tears. That someone you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with is now an ex. It just… makes all those memories bitter.”

Robin nods. “Like remembering getting a Lego set for your kid. I don’t think about how happy  _he_ was. I think about how happy we were and…” His voice fades and he doesn't make an attempt to finish, but again, she knows exactly where he was going.

“Yeah—” Regina draws in a breath. “For the record,” she begins. “I don’t just go around making out with men in bars, either, and though I was a little disappointed, I’m glad it ended when it did.”

“Are you?”

She nods. “After the whiskey wore off, I felt a lot less brave,” she admits. “You’re the first man I’ve kissed since my divorce, and… had it gone further… I…” She shrugs. “I think I’d have been the one backing out, and it’d probably have been a lot more awkward than it was.”

“When, um… when did your marriage end?”

“About a year ago,” she tells him. “He just moved to Montana.”

“That’s… far.”

Regina nods. “My kid is with him—”

“Permanently?”

“No, just for a month and a half.”

“Ah—”

“It feels very permanent though.”

“I see my son every other weekend, and on Thursdays.” He sighs. “I… absolutely hate that I don’t get to pick him up from school and read him a bedtime story at night… that I wasn’t there when he lost his first tooth.” Robin shrugs. “I can’t help but wonder what else I’ll miss.”

“I… feel like I don’t know how to be myself without being Henry’s mom.”

“Yeah. I suddenly feel like a part-time parent. I know that’s not my fault, exactly, but...”

“Well, I don’t know about you,” she says as his voice fades. “I’ve never had a problem blaming myself for things that aren’t my fault.” He nods understandingly, reaching for his coffee and taking a long sip.  “And your divorce is new, I take it?”

“It was finalized earlier this week.”

She nods, sighing a bit as she offers an empathetic grin. “Hence drinking alone, and… hence not being ready.”

“Yes.”

“I get it.” He nods—and for a moment, it looks like he wants to say something, like he’s dying to, in fact, but his voice never comes. So, she tries instead. “My divorces is a bit older—”

“Does it hurt less yet? People keep telling me that eventually, it’ll hurt less.”

“No,” she admits. “Every time I think I’m starting to feel okay about it, I… I just… I don’t know. Something else happens. I was  _just_ starting to be okay with it just being me and Henry. We had our routines, you know? And then, all of a sudden I’m putting my kid on a plane to Montana for the summer.”

Robin blinks. “That’s… far.”

“It is.” Regina scowls. “And it has  _terrible_ phone and wifi service, so—”

“So, talking to him is even limited.”

She nods, offering a disgruntled little sigh as she recalls the argument she and Daniel had about this whole ordeal. She was mad that he’d talked to Henry before her, and she didn't want him flying alone; but Daniel insisted there was nothing wrong with either of those things. He was patronizing and belittled her feelings; and she never remembered him being like that—but then, she’d been wrong about a lot of things when it came to him.

“I get to see my son on Thursdays and every other weekend, and that’s still not enough. I can’t imagine going the whole summer.”

“Honestly, neither can I.”

“But I assume you couldn’t imagine  _any_ of this, could you?”

Regina shakes her head. “No.”

For a moment, neither of them says anything, and then Robin scoffs. “You know, all my well-meaning friends keep suggesting I should go and talk to someone about all of this—”

“Like therapy?”

“Yeah,” he tells her, nodding. “And I didn’t think it was something I was interested in. I didn’t think I’d be able to just talk to a random stranger or—no offense—care to hear their divorce stories, and likewise, I didn’t think anyone would want to hear mine.”

“Yet here you are, talking to a complete stranger about your divorce.”

A grin twists onto his lips. “Well, to be fair, I don’t think I can call you a  _complete_ stranger.”

“Not after having your tongue down my throat for the better part of an evening?”

He flushes, and it’s adorable. She grins back, but he looks away. “Uh, yeah. Exactly.”

“Well,” she begins, drawing in a breath and taking a quick sip of her coffee. “I did the therapy thing, and it’s mostly a mixed bag.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah, it’s… sort of helpful, depending on how you look at it. But, at the end of the day, when you go home, it doesn’t change anything.”

“You still go home and… and are alone.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, nodding and taking another sip of her coffee. “Apparently, if you keep going—”

“Did talking about it help, though? I mean—”

“I had a little spiel,” she tells him. “I was never fully comfortable talking about it. It’s… it’s embarrassing and I was raised to keep personal things, well, personal. We didn’t talk about things like this when I was growing up, so, I had a little spiel.”

“Ah—”

Taking a breath, she narrows her eyes, her heart fluttering and her stomaching flopping. “I’d… I’d tell the group about how Daniel and I met and what our relationship was like, the struggles we overcame together and… and I’d talk about how I was completely blindsided when he told me he wanted a divorce.”

“Had you… had you been going through a rough spot?”

“Yes,” she admits. “But I thought that was normal, you know? Everyone goes through a rough patch here and there. Marriage is hard and long-term, and it made sense to me that there’d be ups and downs.”

Robin nods in agreement. “That’s marriage.”

“Yes, and… and then I’d tell them that, now that I looked back at it, it wasn’t that he’d just woken up one morning and didn’t want to be married like I thought. Once the shock wore off, I could see that… we just were going in different directions. Or, well, maybe  _I_  was going in a direction and he was staying put.” She shrugs, sighing. She still hasn’t worked all this out, and it was far easier to be aloof in a circle of somewhat preoccupied strangers than it is when you are one-on-one in a conversation. “Daniel was… always the same. That’s what I loved about him. He was stable, you know? He was my constant. But, that meant that while  _I_  grew up, he didn't. In a lot of ways, it was like he was still stuck in high school.”

“Were you high school sweethearts?”

“We were,” she admits, smiling sadly. “He’s been a part of my life since I was sixteen.”

“And now he’s not.”

“Yes.”

“That’s… so jarring.”

“It is.”

“We were high school sweethearts, too,” he tells her. “Me and Marian, my wi—” Grimacing, he stops and clears his throat. “My ex-wife.”

“It’s hard, isn't it?” she asks, rubbing her hands against her coffee cup and mustering an empathetic little grin. “Shifting like that.”

“All of it’s hard, but the worst is when I do things like this around my son. He… he doesn't know how to respond. So, I always try to choose my words carefully.”

Again, she sips her coffee, this time, having to tip up the cup to get any. “My son avoids talking about his dad with me. He… he took down pictures and when Daniel calls, he’s hesitant to tell me who’s on the phone.”

“He’s trying to protect you.”

“I suppose.”

“Still hurts, though.”

She nods. “And, as terrible as this might sound, I’m angry with Daniel for that, for putting him in the position where he feels like he needs to do that. He’s a kid. He shouldn’t—” Her voice halts and she looks away, taking another drink of her coffee as she tries not to get too upset.

“You’re nearly out.”

“Hm?”

“Of coffee,” he clarifies, motioning to her cup. “Would, um… would you like another?”

“Oh,” she murmurs, lowering it back to the table and looking into the nearly-empty mug. “I didn’t realize—”

“I was going to order something. I’m feeling a bit peckish and—”

Her smile is immediate as her brows arch. “Peckish?”

Robin laughs as he nods, and as she draws in a breath, she bites down on her lip. “I would like another.”

“So, you… you’ll, um… you’ll stay and chat for a bit?” he asks, his eyes hopeful as he offers her a shy little grin. “I don’t often find someone I feel comfortable talking to about all of this and—”

“It’s easier when the other person actually gets it, rather than trying to muster empathy they can’t possibly scrap together or… or offer advice when they have no idea what they’re talking about.”

“Yeah. Yeah, exactly,” he tells her, nodding as he awkwardly reaches for her cup—and as he walks toward the counter, she watches him go, her cheeks flushing with warmth.

She likes him, she realizes. She  _really_ likes him. Before, she’d assumed that it was the alcohol making her feel the way that she had. It helped, of course, that he had a gorgeous, dimpled smile and soft, blue eyes that she could easily get lost in, strong arms that made her feel secure and a shy little laugh that made her swoon--but since Daniel, she hasn’t really noticed anyone in the way she noticed him, and since Daniel, she hasn’t felt compelled to get to know someone the way she feels compelled to get to know him. And while the timing is absolutely terrible—neither of them ready for any sort of relationship—she can’t help but enjoy whatever it is she is feeling.

And perhaps the feeling is enough.

____

Robin returns to the table, balancing two plates and another mocha, his heart fluttering and his stomach flopping as he watches Regina’s jaw drop.

“I… didn’t know what you liked to eat, so…” His voice trails off as she takes the coffee and one of the plates. “So, I got mozzarella sticks—because who doesn’t like mozzarella sticks—and then the fries, another usually-safe staple.”

Regina laughs softly. “And another mocha with no whip. You got my order right.”

“Well, Granny helped with that. I can’t take all the credit there,” he tells her as he sits back down.

“But you’re right, who doesn’t like a good mozzarella stick?”

“My ex,” he tells her, laughing a bit awkwardly. “But she had an issue with lactose, so—” He stops, grimacing. “You… don’t need to know that.”

To his relief, Regina laughs again. “No, no. It’s fine. Daniel was a picky eater. No allergies or sensitivities or anything like that, just picky for the sake of being picky. A meat-and-potatoes kind of guy who wouldn’t touch anything too  _ethnic_.”

“So, it’s safe to assume you didn’t do Indian very often.”

“We didn’t do  _Italian_ very often.”

“Oh,” he murmurs, chuckling to himself. “That’s… a bit extreme.”

“Especially when I  _love_ Italian food.”

“Do you?”

She nods. “I make an  _amazing_ lasagna.”

“I… do not,” he admits, grinning sheepishly. “But I do enjoy eating lasagna. That’s actually how I discovered this place.” He watches as Regina bristles. “Granny makes a pretty amazing lasagna.”

“I’ve heard.”

His brow arches. He seems to have struck a chord, but her annoyance only lasts a moment. She takes a quick sip of her coffee, breathing it in as a hint of a smile edges onto her lips. She holds it in her mouth for a moment, savoring it, then as she exhales, her smile brightens.

He’s not sure how it’s possible that she’s more beautiful than he remembered, but she is.

At the bar, she’d been wearing a tight, form-fitted blue dress and a string of pearls. She’d worn black heels and her hair and makeup were done. She’s been impeccably manicured and refined; but today, she’s wearing a pair of worn jeans and a white t-shirt. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and though she was wearing makeup, it was light and natural-looking. Around her wrist was a thin, gold watch and a gold chain that held a heart-shaped pendant trimmed in peridot stones. Though he could be wrong, he could only assume that peridot was her son’s birthstone, and somehow, he found that quite endearing.

Her smile stretched to her eyes and there was a boldness about her that he appreciated—and while he didn’t quite understand it and couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was about her, she made him feel comfortable like few other had ever been able to make him feel.

“So, uh, that group,” he begins a bit awkwardly. “Do you, uh… do you still go?”

“No,” she admits. “It was helpful, but…” she sighs. “I have this terrible habit of getting in my own way.”

“Ah, I’m quite familiar.”

“Were you interested in checking it out? I probably have a card or something,” she tells him, reaching for her purse. “Doctor Hopper is—”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“I just… I don’t think I’m quite ready to tell an entire group of people that I’ve been in love with one woman since I was seventeen years old or that the year we spent apart in college was the worst year of my life, so now that we’re going to spend  _the rest_  of our years apart, I don’t quite know how I’ll manage it.”

She offers him a tight little grin, then pushes the mozzarella sticks toward him. “Take one. Eat your feelings. It  _really_ does help.” Chuckling, he takes her advice and reaches for one and plunges it into the cup of marinara sauce at the center of the plate. “You and your ex spent a year apart?”

“Her first year of college and my second.”

“What happened?”

“She was going abroad to study and didn’t want either of us to feel tied down.”

“Ah, and it’s safe to assume that you didn’t feel tied down.”

“No, but I should’ve known then that she did.”

“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. Don’t beat yourself up for that.”

Robin shrugs. “When she came back, we quickly got back together and… that was that. What I didn’t know is that when she was studying abroad, she met someone. She dated that someone and she only broke up with that someone because neither of them saw a long-distance, international relationship working out.”

“Oh—”

“I had no idea she was  _settling_ for me.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah,” he says, stuffing the mozzarella stick into his mouth. “Love sucks.”

“Here, here,” she murmurs, raising her coffee cup. “You’ll get no argument from me.” He watches as she takes a long sip and her eyes narrow. “So, what happened?”

“With me and Marian?”

“Yeah,” she says, nodding as she reaches for a fry. “Was she just unhappy, or—”

“Her ex-girlfriend came back into her life.”

“Oh,  _the_ ex?”

Robin nods. “Marian got a new job and they were hired into the same company together.”

He watches as her eyes widen. “Did she have an affair?”

“No,” he sighs, shaking his head. “I almost wish she would have, though.”

“Why?”

“So I’d have a reason to hate her.” Regina offers him a tight little grin that doesn’t feign empathy; instead, it offers sincere compassion that he’s surprised to find a little comforting. “She came home from work one night and she… told me,” he says, sighing at the memory. “I’d just put Roland to bed and thought we were going to cuddle up on the couch to watch a movie, but she told me she was in love with someone else and wanted the chance to pursue it.”

“Oh, god, Robin. That’s awful.”

He shrugs. “She was sorry, you know? She didn't think she’d ever have this chance and—”

“She put it on you,” Regina says flatly, waiting for him to look up at her. “She put her wanting someone else on you, like  _you’d_ be the one in the way if she didn't take this chance she’d been yearning for all these years.”

Robin frowns. “Something like that.”

“Well, that warrants you hating her.”

“Does it? She was… just being honest about—”

“Robin, you were her husband, and she’d been harboring feelings for someone else all these years. You have the right to be pissed off about that.”

He blinks. No one had ever said that to him. No one had ever been squarely on his side. Everyone in his life was tangled between him and Marian—even John had a tendency to want to smooth things over and weigh both sides. After all, they’d all been the best of friends before the divorce.

“It’s just… it’s hard to hate her.”

“You don’t have to  _hate_ her,” Regina says. “But you can be pissed about her blowing apart a life you loved.”

Robin’s brow arches. “Did you get that out of therapy?” he asks. “Because, if you did—”

“No,” she cuts in, laughing softly and a bit sadly. “That was one of the reasons I stopped going. I was too angry about everything. I felt like I was… holding the rest of the group back.”

He grins, not really knowing what to say.

“I just… I think everyone’s entitled to their feelings. It’s not fair to tell anyone how they  _should_ be feeling. Everyone’s experiences are different and just because someone else had an amicable divorce doesn’t mean  _I_ am having an amicable divorce.”

“It’s like the grieving process—”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“Not everyone is at the same spot. Not everyone responds the same way. Not everyone loses someone in the same way.”

“Yeah,” Regina murmurs, reaching for one of the mozzarella sticks. “For Daniel, there wasn’t a  _someone_  else. It was a  _something_.”

“Oh?”

“I had no idea that there wasn’t any part of our life together that made him happy.”

“What about your son?”

Regina hesitates and then sighs. “He loves Henry. I know that, but he had  _no problem_  leaving him for a ranch in Montana. Raising horses and cattle makes him happy, so he left everything behind, his son included.”

“Is that how Henry sees it?” Robin asks, his mouth suddenly dry as he thinks of Roland. “I just wonder—”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Henry doesn't talk to me about Daniel. I hate that, but he’s definitely his father’s son when it comes to handling his emotions.” The corner of her mouth tugs upward as she fails to smile, and somehow, there’s something terribly endearing about that. “Unlike his mother who flies off the handle and makes sure everyone know exactly what she’s thinking and feeling at all times.”

“I don’t think that’s a negative thing,” he admits. “Being honest about your feelings, regardless of how they sting in the moment, is healthy. Keeping things bottled up only hurts more in the end, I think.”

He’s drawing from experience and she knows it, and this time, she manages a little smile.

For a moment, silence falls between them, and he finds himself searching for something else to say, not wanting their conversation to dwindle. But time and time again, he comes up blank—and then, before he even realizes it, she reaching for a ringing phone in her purse. Momentarily, she excuses herself and he nods, watching her step out onto the diner’s porch.

He watches as her brow creases and he can almost hear annoyance seeping into her voice, and as she ends the call, she shoves her phone into her back pocket and returns to the table. He’s not sure why, but he expects her to sit down—and when she doesn't, when she instead reaches for her purse and rattles off something about a plumber cracking her tile, he feels an odd emptiness, already missing her company.

She gives him a smile and wishes him luck as she hands him a twenty to cover her coffees and her portion of the appetizers, then just like that, she’s gone.

_____

Regina frowns as she looks at a sea of white and beige bathroom tiles, and looks to Mal who only shrugs.

“It’s your bathroom, not mine,” Mal tells her. “You’ve gotta pick.”

“I know, I just… I feel bad having you and Rose and the girls help with this.”

“Rose  _loves_ doing this kind of thing. You know that.”

“And the girls?”

“It’s… it’s character building,” Mal says dismissively. “Maybe we should pick out paint first.”

Regina nods. “Maybe.”

“Maybe it’s character building or maybe we should start with paint?”

“Both.”

Mal sighs as they turn out of the aisle, walking somewhat aimlessly in the direction they assume the paint is in.

They’ve been at Home Depot for the better part of an hour, after Mal and Rose came to save her sanity.

When she’d returned home from Granny’s diner, she’d expected to find a crack in the tile. Something small, but something that, nonetheless, pissed her off; but instead what she’d found was a massive crack down one of the walls inside of the shower. Little bits of ceramic tile flaked away whenever she touched her fingers to it. The contractor explained how it’d happened, but she’d been too angry to listen. All she’d been able think of was how she’d never asked for her bathroom to be redone, it was fine the way it was.

At some point, he’d offered to fix it for free and another one of the workers ran down to the truck to fetch tile samples and she started to calm down, reminding herself that the tile was old and would eventually need to be replaced anyway—and long before then, she would need to clean the grout. The second workman returned with a booklet of little tiles and she’d bristled as he pointed out one with little specs of lavender which matched the new paint. With a sigh she looked to the wall, actually considering the color despite hating it, and it was then that she noticed the smashed seashell jar on the floor—and after that, she’d lost all sense of reason.

On the turn of a dime, she found herself flipping from mildly annoyed to a full-on rage, tossing the contractors out of her house. Minutes later her mother called—she’d obviously been summoned by her minions—and she’d given her an earful, too. By the end of it all, she was in tears, standing in the middle of her destroyed bathroom with those lavender walls that she fucking hated, and it seemed so appropriate for her life.

When she’d pulled herself together, she called Mal; then no more than twenty minutes later, Mal and Rose were storming up her stairs, with their daughters lugging all sorts of gadgets behind them.

Mal and Rose had always been good at this sort of thing—good at picking up the broken pieces, both literally and metaphorically—and she felt minutely better when Rose offered her a sweet little grin and told her it was all an easy fix. Rose and the girls started chipping away tile while Mal dragged her away to Home Depot to pick out something new.

“Where did you and Rose learn to… do all of this?”

Mal grins. “You don’t remember?” Regina shakes her head, her brow furrowing at the memory that doesn't come. “I was pregnant with Lily. We’d just had her shower and our tiny little studio could barely hold the boxes, let alone the assembled furniture.”

Regina grins. She vaguely remembers that she and Daniel helped them haul in what seemed like an endless pile of boxes in the middle of a spring rainstorm. “Possibly.”

“So, we had two months to figure something out. We were poor, and about to be poorer, so we snagged a fixer-upper—”

“That house  _never_ looked like a fixer-upper.”

“Rose channelled her nerves into home improvements. She was terrified that Lily was going to… fall through the floor or catch something from the old tub.”

Regina grins. “Okay, maybe I do remember that part.”

“You thought she was crazy.”

“I did, and if I’m not mistaken when she found out she was pregnant with Aurora the two of you tore down a wall between two bedrooms.” A grin twists onto Regina’s lips. “I remember because I avoided you two like you had the plague because I was afraid I’d have to assist.”

Mal’s eyes roll. “I did it. She instructed. It was easier than it looked.”

“Somehow, I seriously doubt that.”

“It’s all trial and error, and… it’s cathartic,” Mal explains. “You get better at it the more you do it. You’ll see.”

“No,” Regina says, her voice firm and decisive. “This is a one-time thing.”

“Alright,” Mal says, sighing a little as they round the paint counter. “Let’s pick paint.”

Regina frowns. “I loved the blue color that it was.”

“Okay, well… there are… something like five hundred shades of blue over—”

“No,” Regina cuts in. “My mother ruined it.”

“As she always does.”

“I just want the lavender gone.”

“Is that even lavender? It’s like…” Her voice trails off. “It’s like they forgot to add the purple.”

Regina smiles as she peruses the paint, grinning softly as she reaches for a strip of greens. From the corner of her eye, she sees Mal’s brow arch at the unusual selection, and her finger rubs against one that’s simply called “pine tree.” Her lip catches between her teeth, and she draws in a breath, and again, from the corner of her eye, she catches Mal’s confused gaze. “I, um… I ran into that guy again.”

“Oh? The one from the bar?”

Regina nods. “He… smelled like forest.”

“Forest—”

“His name is Robin.”

“I see,” Mal murmurs, a grin twisting onto her lips. “Robin, who smells like forest—”

“We had coffee and mozzarella sticks.”

“You  _had mozzarella sticks_?” Mal asks, her laugh catching in her chest and coming out in a burst. “When did this happen?”

“This afternoon.”

“Before the paint and tile disaster?”

Regina nods. “He was at Granny’s.”

“So, he’s local. He’s from this neighborhood.”

Regina laughs softly as she puts back the paint strip. “Is that odd?”

“No one’s from here. We live in the middle of nowhere. Everyone knows everyone.”

“That’s not completely true.”

“No?” Mal asks, laughing as she looks around. “Do you see anyone in this store that you  _don’t_ know, at least as an acquaintance?”

“Well—” Regina stops, bristling as she reaches for a stip of off-white paint colors, and no sooner than she pulls it from the slot, Mal takes it and puts it back, shaking her head. “Anyway. That doesn’t matter. We just talked about our divorces and how what happened between us the other night wasn’t typical for either of us and—”

“Oh my god. This sounds like the plot of one of those dumb rom-coms Rory likes.”

“It’s not a dumb rom-com that Rory likes though. I didn’t even get his number.”

“No, of course not,” Mal scoffs. “Why would you do that? I mean, when I was dating—”

“I’m not dating.”

“But—”

“I’m  _not dating_ , Mal.”

“Fine,” she sighs. “Well, whenever the female lead in those movies meets a guy she finds dreamy, she never—”

Regina’s eyes roll. “Okay. No. Dreamy is—”

“You just told me he smelled like a pine tree, Regina. Dreamy is  _exactly_ what you thought he was.”

Frowning, Regina bristles and turns back to the paint strips. “I said he smelled like forest.”

“That’s not better.”

“I know,” she murmurs, reaching for a strip of grays. “What about… this one?” She looks to Mal as she points to a light shade of gray. “How about—”

“One lower, and I think you have a winner.”

Considering it for a moment, Regina nods. “Okay. Sure. Yeah, I like that.”

“And it’ll look nice with that tile we saw. You know, the white one with the specks of black all over it.” Regina’s eyes narrow. She doesn't remember. “Trust me,” Mal says, reaching for her hand a tugging her toward the counter.

Regina stands beside her as she orders the paint—and Regina’s thoughts begin to drift to Robin and his soft blue eyes and sweet smile. She thinks about the way the corners of his eyes crinkled as he laughed and the way he shifted nervously as they talked, and she thinks of the way his whole face lit up at the mere mention of his son.

Before this afternoon, she’d found it easy to blame her attraction on the whiskey; but now, she couldn’t do that. She’d been completely sober and so had he—and, to be perfectly honest, seeing him that way made him all the more endearing. He wasn’t some smooth, sexy guy at a bar across town that she’d never see again; he was real and vulnerable, and he was someone she’d like to know.

He wasn’t ready to date; that was obvious. But she’d be lying to herself if she said she hadn’t thought about it, or considered that maybe they could help one another heal.

“Alright, so—” Mal stops as Regina looks to her, and it’s more than obvious that she hasn’t been paying attention to anything going on. Mal just shakes her head and laughs, again reaching for her hand and dragging her away from the counter. “It’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

“Oh. Okay,” Regina murmurs, absently following Mal. “And we’re going…”

“To get the tile.”

“Right.”

“You were thinking about him, weren’t you?”

“No.”

“You’re such a shitty liar.”

“I was just… thinking about… how nice it was talking to him about—”

“Like I said,” Mal cuts in. “You’re a shitty liar.”

Regina frowns as they round a corner back to the area where the tile is kept. “How did you know?”

“You looked like you wanted to lick something,” Mal says flatly. “You were literally staring off into space like you could lick the fucking air, and I assume you were thinking of him and his dreamy smile.” A smirk edges onto Mal’s lips. “Or perhaps another par—”

“Oh my god, Mal, stop. Someone might—”

“Hear me?” Mal asks, grinning. “You weren’t so concerned about that the other night in the back of that Uber.”

Regina frowns and feels her cheeks flush with warmth. “I was very drunk.”

“Among other things.”

“I hate you sometimes.”

“I know,” Mal says, smiling brighter. “Maybe this is a sign that it’s time for you to get back out there.”

“Oh, I don’t—”

“Regina, I wasn’t kidding the other night. You’re gorgeous and single, and for the next eight weeks, you have nothing but free time.”

“I… have a job.”

“Oh. Okay. Sure. That’ll fill your life.”

“I’m not—”

“You  _deserve_ another shot at happiness.”

“What if I only got the one?” Regina asks, trying to be cheeky, but coming across as insecure. “What if—”

“Life doesn't work like that unless you let it.” Regina sighs as they turn down the tile aisle, and again, she feels an overwhelming indecisiveness overtake her. “It’s not permanent, you know.”

She looks to Mal, her brow furrowing. “Are we talking about the tile or me dating?”

“Both.”

“Oh.”

“Have a fling. Have some fun. Have—”

“He’s not ready to date. He’s still in love with his ex-wife.”

A grin twists onto Mal’s lips as her eyebrows arch. “I wasn’t talking about  _him_.”

“I know,” Regina says, sighing. “He’s just the first guy that I’ve… been attracted to since Daniel and—”

“So, you  _did_ think he was dreamy.”

“Yes,” Regina admits. “I liked him. A lot. And he’s completely unavailable emotionally.”

“That’s  _great_.” Regina’s face scrunches as she turns to look at Mal who laughs. “Moving on happens slowly.”

“How do you know? You met Rose—”

“Rory’s rom-coms. That’s how I know.”

“Life isn’t a movie.”

“No, but all art is inspired by life. So—”

“You find that on the front of a journal or something?”

Mal shrugs. “So, what if I did? The point is valid. Besides that, you need to pull yourself out of this funk. Go on some fun dates. Make out with some people. Have some good, drunken sex.”

“Mal, shh—”

Mal shrugs dismissively. “Regina, use this summer to figure out what you want and what you don’t want. Use this summer as an opportunity to find yourself again.” Reaching out, Mal pulls a ticket from a pocket in front of the white-and-black tile, then looks pointedly back to her. “Give Gillian Anderson a rest.”

Regina’s eyes widen and her cheeks flush, but she laughs and finds herself nodding. “What if… what if no one wants me? What if…”

“Not everyone will, and  _you_ won’t want everyone. But don’t let what happened with Daniel turn you off forever. It’ll be hard at first, but it’ll get easier.”

“Get that from a rom-com?”

“Personal experience,” Mal says gently. “Rose wasn’t the first person I ever dated. She wasn’t the second or the fifth or even the tenth. But finding her was  _worth_ all the hassle of finding all those other people who were wrong for me.”

Regina sighs as Mal starts to wander down the aisle, in the opposite direction of the paint counter. “Maybe. Can I… think about it? Can we drop this for—” She stops as they wind down an aisle they definitely didn’t visit before. “Are we taking the scenic route?”

“Something like that,” Mal says, grinning. “I have to pick something up for Lily and Rory.”

“Your teenage daughters want something from the hardware store.”

Mal nods, reaching for a tiny little mirror. “Don’t tell them I told you, but they’re making you a new accessory for your bathroom.” She pauses, turning the little circular mirror toward her. “They want to trim this with the pieces from your broken seashell jar.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet. Mal, I love—” She stops as she sees a familiar face in the mirror, her jaw dropping as she whirls around. “Oh my god.”

“What just happened?”

“It’s him.”

“What?”

“There, turning toward… well, there,” she sighs, gesturing toward a distant aisle. “That’s Robin.”

Mal’s brow juts up. “The one that looks like a lumberjack?”

“No—”

“Because he looks like the kind of guy who’d smell like a forest.”

“The other one.”

“Oh, I…” Mal squints. “I didn’t see—” She takes a step forward, but Regina stops her. “What?”

“We can’t go over there.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want him to think I’m… I don’t know… stalking him or something. I don’t want to be the crazy lady he made out with in a bar, then showed up at his favorite diner and—”

“I highly doubt he’s telling his friends you’re going all  _Fatal Attraction_  on him.”

“Let’s go get my paint,” Regina says, her stomach flopping as she drags Mal out of the aisle, her eyes rolling as Mal cranes her neck to catch a glimpse.

They make their way back to the paint counter and she’s relieved that Mal is immediately distracted, testing the color and holding it up against the picture of the tile they selected, completely missing Robin loading two ceiling fans into his car while his friend chooses some light bulbs for it before winding down another aisle, once again moving out of sight.

_____

“You know,” John begins. “There are stores that sell pre-assembled furniture.”

Robin blinks, looking up from the TV Stand he’s been assembling for the better half of an hour. “Yeah. Well, where’s the fun in that?”

“Oh, it’s  _loads_ of fun,” John insists as he frowns down at the instruction booklet that came with Roland’s dresser. “They just bring it to your apartment, then you just get to use it. Just like that.”

“Everything in those stores reminded me of Marian.”

“Really? Every single item in four different—”

“Yes,” Robin cuts in. “And I’d like to think this stage in my life is temporary, that this damn apartment is temporary.”

John sighs and nods. “Then IKEA shit is just perfect.”

“Exactly,” Robin says grinning as he gives the TV stand a shake to ensure that it’s sturdy and won’t come crashing down in the middle of the night. “Besides, everything was such a steal. Look at this thing! It’s just as nice as something from those furniture stores—”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but—”

“I would.”

“When I suggested going to IKEA, I meant you should get things like… forks and drawer organizers and hangers.”

“But I found so much more!”

John’s eyes roll. “Yes. Yes, you did.” Robin laughs as John gets up with a grunt. “Okay, I’ve got like twelve extra screws, but it appears your dresser is put together.”

“Thanks,” Robin says, grinning. “I want to do Roland’s room next.”

“Alright,” John says, drawing in a breath as he looks through a sea of cardboard boxes. “Uh, let’s see—”

“I can’t wait for him to see it,” Robin says as he moves to what was once an empty dining space. “I think he’s going to go nuts seeing this room.”

“If we can figure out—” John bends, scrunching his nose as he reads the box. “The, uh… stuva, um… friti... das.”

A smirk edges onto Robin’s lips. He hadn’t intended to get all of his furniture at IKEA, and he’d spent a small fortune there. Everything was compact and space-saving, and it afforded Roland a bedroom and space to play—and ultimately, creating a space for his son was his real goal in decorating his dank little apartment.

He’d taken John’s suggestion of turning the dining area into a bedroom, and he’d purchased a solid green curtain. He and John hung a rod, and he’d found sheets with green, blue and red robots all over them. He found a red and blue tent to create a little reading nook, and a lofted bed that came with a desk and a bookshelf where Roland could do his homework and keep his art supplies. He bought cube storage bins with pull-out drawers to store all of Roland’s legos and toy cars, and a rug that had a road that weaved through a little town. There were colorful lamps and throw pillows, and all sorts of things that would make up a fun, cozy little room where his son would  _want_ to live.

Well, on Thursdays and every other weekend.

The coffee table he’d bought for the living room had plenty of storage for board games, and the TV stand had little cabinets where Roland could keep his favorite video games and DVDs. He got plates and cups in fun colors, and the furniture for his own bedroom was functional and inexpensive.

“The pieces are mostly big,” Robin says. “I’m sure it’ll be easy.”

“Sure,” John nods. “And when your kid’s bed falls apart and he cracks his head open, you’ll have me to blame. Great.” Robin just shrugs as he starts to open up one end of the box, fishing out the instruction booklet and tossing it at John. “So, where do you want this thing? Once we get it built, it’s, uh… it’s not moving.”

“By the window,” Robin says decidedly. “We’ll have the shelf on the side and the desk on the other side, and maybe stick a little bean bag chair in there in front of the—”

“You’re building an apartment inside of your apartment.”

“No, just—” He stops abruptly and laughs as he pulls out a gallon-sized bag of hardware. “An… obstacle course.”

“All that for... um… whatever  _this_ is?” John asks, pointing to the box as his nose scrunches. “So, I’ll tell ya what. You sort all this shit, and I’ll install the ceiling fan. Then, when I’m done, I’ll have a beer and do the one in your room, and move…” His voice trails off. “You want this dresser in your room?”

“I… guess,” Robin says, shrugging as he focuses on pulling out the identical-looking wood panels that serve as the walls of Roland’s lofted bed. “Just… shove it somewhere. I don’t care where.”

“Shove it somewhere—”

“Yeah, pick a wall and put it there.”

“Okay,” John says with a shrug. “Not much for Feng Shui, I see.”

Robin blinks. “Am I supposed to know what that is?”

“It’s—” John stops and reaches for the fan for Roland’s room. “Okay. I don’t actually know  _what_ it is. The last girl I dated moved a bunch of shit around in my apartment and said it was  _Feng Shui_. Helps with… flow or… energy or…”

“I think she just didn’t like where you had your stuff.”

John shrugs and rips open the top of the box. “I don’t know, but I did like the Fire candle.”

“Fire candle? Is that an oxymoron?”

“No, it smelled like—”

“Let me guess… it smelled like  _fire_?”

John’s eyes roll as he looks to Robin, pulling out a tiny little ziplock of screws and holding it up. “Mock all you want. Have fun with your… whatever the hell that thing is.”

“I’m handling it just fine, thanks.”

“Sure—”

Chuckling softly, Robin surveys the contents. It appears that all of the parts are accounted for, so he works next on sorting out the gallon-sized bag of hardware. “I, uh… I saw her again.”

“Her—”

“Regina.”

“Who is— _Oh_. Is that the woman from the bar?”

“Yeah. She was at Granny's drinking a mocha.”

A smirk edges onto John’s lips. “Ooh. A mocha—”

“What?” Robin asks, his eyes widening a bit as he laughs. “Why did you say it that way?”

“Just…” John shakes his head. “Never mind. What happened?”

“We talked.”

His eyebrows shrug suggestively. “Talked… as in you…”

“We just talked.”

“About what?”

“Our divorces.”

“Oh,” John says, frowning. “You know, when you’re flirting, you probably shouldn’t—”

“I wasn’t flirting.”

“You should have been.” Robin’s eyes roll, and John reaches for a screwdriver. “You obviously like her.”

“I’m not ready to  _like_ anyone, and I don’t think she is.”

“No,” John says, shaking his head. “No, women who aren’t ready to date never go to bars to pick up men.”

“That’s not why—”

“She spent the better part of an evening with your tongue down her throat and your hand feeling up her thigh. Arguing that she— and you, for that matter— wasn’t looking for something is pretty damn counterproductive.”

“We were both drunk.”

“Ever hear of liquid courage?”

“It wasn’t like that—”

“Fine,” John sighs. “How long did you two talk-and-not-make out this time?”

“A little over an hour.”

John nods. “Oh, right. People who aren’t interested in each other  _always_  spend an hour talking after they run into each other in random places.”

“It was crowded. There weren’t tables available—”

“You sat with her. Your apartment is, like, five hundred feet from—”

“Up until an hour or so ago, I didn’t own real plates. I had to sit with her.”

“Did she invite you to sit with her?”

Robin shrugs. “We… needed to clear the air about what happened the other night.”

“Oh. Right. When you both were so uninterested in each other you spent the evening kissing.” Robin’s eyes roll as he looks back to the bag of hardware and continues to sort. “You should call her. Set up a—”

“I didn’t get her number.”

John’s eyes sink closed and he pushes his fingers to his brow. “You… are so bad at this.”

“What—” Robin’s voice halts as the phone rings and his eyes roll as John looks to it expectantly. “It’s not  _her_.”

“How do you know?”

“She didn’t get my number, either.”

“You know, there’s this thing called the internet, and in my experiences, girls are  _really_ good at using it to—”

Robin frowns as he locates his phone under a pile of plastic wrap and cardboard. “It’s Marian.”

“Don’t answer. We’re busy.”

“It could be about Roland.”

“She’ll leave a voicemail if it’s important.”

John sighs, watching as he takes the call—and almost immediately, he wishes he’d taken John’s suggestion to not answer and had simply let the call go to voicemail.

He excuses himself into the bedroom, away from John’s curious eyes, and listens as Marian explains that she found plane tickets and a good deal on a Disney Vacation, and that she just couldn’t resist booking them. It hadn’t occurred to her until after that Roland would miss his Thursday visit and his next promised-weekend with Roland. His jaw tightened as she begged him to switch weekends--he could have Roland for two consecutive weekends after the Disney trip—and though he wanted to be an asshole and throw a wrench into her plans by reminding her that their agreement was court-ordered and he didn’t want to wait for time with his son, she ended her plea by explaining that Roland was so excited about the trip that hadn’t been able to stop talking about it all day.

She’d already told him, so he was already looking forward to it—and, now, if Robin said no, he’d be taking something away from his son. He’d be the bad guy.

“Fine,” he murmurs in a barely audible voice. “But I want an extra day, too. After you get back, I want him  _Wednesday_ , then Thursday through Sunday. For both weeks.”

His jaw tightens when Marian hesitates. “Okay,” she says, finally. “Five days. Both weeks.”

Marian thanks him again and again before hanging up and as soon as the call ends, he falls back onto the bed and presses his eyes closed.

It had to be fucking Disney.

Of course, it had to be Disney.

For years, they’d talked about taking Roland to Disney World  _together_. Since he was a baby he’d loved all things Disney—from Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, and old VHS tapes of  _Duck Tales_  to the Toy Story movies,  _The Great Mouse Detective_ and every single Disney princess movie he could find. He liked the characters and the songs. He had action figures and bedsheets, books that played music and stuffed animals, and for a solid week after  _Frozen_ came out, he ran around the house with antlers on pretending to be Sven and singing  _Let It Go_.

When he was older, he proved to be a little daredevil, fearlessly climbing trees and begging to go on every fast ride at every carnival and town fair they took him to.

Disney seemed the perfect blend of the things he loved, and both he and Marian agreed, it’d be the perfect trip to take one year for Christmas break whenever Roland was tall enough for the good rides and young enough to still enjoy the characters and magical setting.

At seven, Roland was the  _perfect_ age—and he’d be enjoying the magic of Disney with his mother, alone.

Of course, he could plan another, separate trip; but it wouldn’t be the same.

Marian would be the one to share those memories. He wouldn’t get to see Roland’s face the first time he ran into Buzz Lightyear or rode on Splash Mountain, he wouldn’t get to hear him talk about how cool the Mickey-shaped ice cream was or how good the Dole Whip was, and he’d miss the excitement of trying to see absolutely everything.

If they went again, Roland would know what he wanted to see. It’d still be fun, but it wouldn’t be  _magical_ the way it would be this first time.

And he couldn't help but think that was going to be a running theme in his parenting experiences from this point onward.

“Knock, knock,” John’s voice calls as he peeks into the room. “Sounded like you were done and I wanted to let you know the, uh… the fan is up in Roland’s new room.”

“No rush.”

“What? I thought—”

“We don’t need everything done by next week. We’ve got an extra week.”

“Oh,” John murmurs. “Why?”

“Marian is taking him to Disney.”

“Disney—”

“Yeah.”

“Weren’t you all—”

“Yeah, before the divorce, though.”

John frowns and rubs his fingers to his forehead. “I’m… I’m sorry. You’ve been talking about that since Roland was, like… two.”

“Yeah,” Robin murmurs, his chest aching with a loss he can’t quite explain. This isn’t  _just_ about Disney. It’s yet another reminder of how his life has changed and all the things he planned for have blown apart, and how no matter what he does or how hard he tries, he’ll never be able to put it all back together again. “Marian got a good deal, though.”

“Oh—”

“Hey,” Robin says, cutting in abruptly as he sits up. “Can you help me with another project?”

Shrugging, John nods. “I’m hoping this time it doesn't involve matching curtains to throw pillows or anything that’s purchased from IKEA, though.”

“You know anything about drywall and spackle?”

“A bit. Why?”

“I, uh... I want to knock a few holes in the walls, and I’m going to need some help patching them up so that my landlord doesn’t notice and kick me out.”

John offers a sad, half-hearted little sigh. “I’ve got a better idea.”

“Really?” Robin asks, his jaw tightening as heat rises up the back of his neck. “Because that sounds pretty fucking fantastic right now.”

“How about we walk down to my bar and I’ll kick everyone out. Then we’ll get drunk and play some pool and darts, and if you  _really_ want to break shit, you can take it out on all the empty bottles that’ll be recycled anyway.”

Sighing, Robin nods. “That… does sound like a  better idea. My luck Marian would stop by in the middle of my rampage and I’d never see my son again.”

“Fuck her.”

Despite himself, Robin feels a grin tug up at one corner of his mouth. He doesn't say anything as he gets up, his head still foggy with anger and hurt—then, as he reaches for his keys, he looks at the dresser in the middle of the living room and then looks to John.

“The drawers are crooked.”

“Shut up, you’re getting free beer.”

“Fair enough,” Robin says, chuckling softly as they make their way out of the apartment.

____

“Alright,” Rose calls as she comes into the kitchen, balancing a box of pizza on the tips of fingers and a smaller box of breadsticks resting on the palm of her other hand. “I used my feminine wiles to get us extra dipping sauce—three marinara and three ranch  _for free_.”

Regina giggles as Mal’s brow arches as she reaches for the receipt. “Love, I’m not sure that your  _wiles_ worked on  _Mikey_. Besides that, we  _ordered_ those.”

Rose’s face falls immediately. “No, we didn’t, actually. I forgot,” she says, her voice piquing in defense. “And my wiles  _did_ work on him, just… not the way I anticipated.”

“Oh no,” Regina murmurs, laughing as she frowns. “What happened?”

Rose blinks, rolling her eyes as she looks to Regina. “He told me his mom always forgets to order it, too.”

Mal snorts. “His mom—”

“Oh, well, that’s not  _that_ insulting. Your girls are thirteen and fourteen—”

“He had a full beard.”

Regina grimaces. “Some boys mature—”

“He was wearing a wedding ring, Regina,” Rose cuts in as she sets the pizza and breadsticks down on the counter. “And I am fairly certain he is in the cubicle across from the accountant who does our taxes.”

“Oh,” Regain murmurs as she moves to the cabinets to get plates for everyone. “Ouch.”

She watches Mal soften as she reaches for Rose, hooking her arm around her waist and hugging her into her side before pressing a fleeting yet warm kiss to her cheek as she whispers something into her ear. Rose blushes and giggles in reply—and Regina feels an ache in her chest.

It’s an odd feeling and she finds herself looking away.

She misses  _that_ —the intimacy of little moments, that feeling of knowing you’re loved and loving someone so much that you can’t resist stealing a moment. She opens up the boxes and the ache worsens—she doesn't remember the last time she felt that way, the last time that she and Daniel were that way.

It must’ve stopped at some point, but she didn’t notice, and now, she can’t remember.

“Oh,” Mal murmurs, grimacing as Regina looks up. “Are we being gross?”

“Lily tells us that we’re gross all of the time,” Rose adds, stifling a giggle. “We should be—”

“No,” Regina sighs, forcing a smile. “You’re… adorable.”

Rose grins. “I mean, of course we are, but—”

“Then why do you look like you want to crawl into the cabinet and—” Mal stops, her eyes pressing closed, suddenly connecting the dots. “Sorry. That was insen—”

“You guys are  _fine_ ,” Regina insists, plating a second piece of pizza. “I’m just… I’m just in a funk and can’t seem to get myself out of it.”

“Well, it doesn’t help that you have the two of us rubbing it in your face,” Rose says, frowning.

“That’s not what you guys are—” Regina stops and looks back at the pizza. “This sounds stupid, but… it’s me, not you.” Taking a breath, she plates a third slice. “Sometimes I just see happy couples and I realize that… I’m not a part of one anymore, and then I realize I haven’t been for a  _very_ long time.”

She looks up and watches as Mal and Rose exchange a look and frowns to see they’ve stepped away from each other. They’re both looking at her with wide, supportive eyes, just waiting for her to continue. This is something they’ve done often in the last year—just stood there and listened as she vented about her failed marriage—and she hated that whenever they were all together, they always ended up here.

“Did… something happen?” Rose asks gently. “Like, today, I mean. Did Henry call or—”

“No, nothing happened. I just… felt this wave of sadness.” She shrugs and forces a smile. “It’s gone now, and I don’t want to dwell on it.”

Mal’s eyes narrow. “Liar.”

Regina bristles as she reaches for the breadsticks, tearing them apart and dividing them between the plates. “Fine. It’s  _not_ gone, but I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay—”

“But, if you do—”

“I don’t,” Regina insists. “I’d rather talk about  _anything_ else.”

Rose and Mal exchange looks as Regina rounds the counter, balancing the three plates of pizza. “Alright,” Mal murmurs, moving to take one. “Then let’s talk about something else,” she says simply, handing the plate off to Rose before taking another for herself. “We could talk about how  _amazing_ your new bathroom  _and_ bedroom look—”

“It  _does_ ,” Rose says. “It’s so… calming.”

“Well, I could use a little  _calm_ in my life these days.”

Mal nods as a grin twists onto her lips as Regina leads them out of the kitchen and into the living room, and while they move into the adjoined room they giggle about how jealous Henry would be knowing that they’re having dinner in front of the TV. Regina laughs and admits that she’s allowed him to break that rule more than not since Daniel moved, and the conversation transitions to how Henry’s adjusting to life with divorced parents—but before they can get too deep into the conversation, Mal stops it.

“Okay, no. No, no, no. We’re not going there. Not tonight.” Regina's eyes widen a little, and she wants to say that it’s okay and that she doesn't mind, but Mal shakes her head. “We said we wouldn’t and so we won’t.” A grin twists onto her lips as she rips off a piece of crust and pops it into her mouth. “Especially when there are other things to talk about that are  _so_ much more fun.”

“Oh?”

“So, tell me—do you  _love_ your new bedroom?”

Regina grins—she really does love it. For the first time in her adult life, she has a room that’s only hers. Once the bathroom was done and finished in black, white and gray with splashes of red accents, it seemed only natural that they continue from the master bathroom into the master bedroom. The shades of tan and blue were replaced by a clean, soothing gray on the walls and a plush black throw rug sat overtop of the darkened hardwood floor. They’d gotten new bedding that was a black and white floral pattern, and while she was picking that out, Mal and Rose picked up some red candles and picture frames. They printed black and white pictures of her and Henry and hung them on the wall and found a porcelain white tray to keep on her dressing table for the jewelry she wore daily. They hung sheer white drapes from a black curtain rod and somehow, rose transformed the French blue lamps with their brassy fixtures into pearly white and silver. The TV was hidden in a black cabinet and she hung a new mirror trimmed in wrought iron above the dresser—something she’d hung herself and an accomplishment she was more proud of than she was willing to admit.

Her absolute favorite change, though, was the reading nook in the corner of the room by the window. They’d replaced the denim chair that she’d always hated with a black chaise. They moved an old lamp up from the living room, and again, Rose worked her magic, staining the glass with little red flowers. She and Mal moved some of her favorite books up from the basement and, in the process, found an old white and gray crochet blanket to drape over the back of the chaise.

“I think it’s classy,” Rose says.

Regina nods in agreement. “I can’t wait to curl up—”

“With a man?” She and Rose both look to Mal, who only laughs. “What? I’m just saying now that your ex-husband is out of the picture—literally, I cropped him out of every god damned picture that I hung in that room—you should… christen it.”

“I think I’ll  _christen_ it with a new book and a bottle of wine.”

“Oh, come on, Regina. I  _know_ you saw him today.”

“Who?” she asks dumbly. “I don’t—”

Mal’s brow arches and Rose frowns. “Saw who?”

“No one. Just—”

“So, the night Aurora fell on the trampoline—”

“Mal—”

“What? It’s Rose. It’s astounding that I haven’t told her yet as it is.” Regina sighs as Rose’s lip catches between her teeth—she clearly wants in on the secret but doesn't want to pry. Regina shoves half of a breadstick into her mouth, rolling her eyes as she murmurs a muffled  _Fine, go ahead_ to Mal—and Mal doesn’t hesitate before launching into the story about the night she’d met Robin at the bar.

Rose’s eyes widen, and Regina breathes a sigh of relief when Mal doesn’t mention the drunken Gillian Anderson portion of the conversation they’d had that night, or that her portion of the conversation happened in the back of a damn Uber.

“Well, now, she keeps running into him—”

“We had coffee at Granny’s to clear the air,” Regina clarifies.

“Then she saw him at the hardware store and—”

Regina sighs as Mal’s voice halts and her brow arches, allowing her to continue. “And at the grocery store and at the gas station—”

“It was raining so he pumped her gas,” Mal cuts in as a little grin tugs up at the corners of Rose’s mouth. “He  _stood in the rain_  for her.”

Rose laughs. “That’s sweet, Regina. He sounds sweet!”

“He’s… completely unavailable.”

Rose’s smile fades. “Is he married?”

“No, divorced.”

“Then—”

“It’s a new divorce.”

“So? Lick each other’s wounds.”

Mal smirks. “She’d like to lick a whole lot more than that.”

Regina’s eyes widen and her cheeks flush a little as she focuses down on her pizza. “He’s not that kind of—”

“I realize I have  _zero_ experience here,” Rose says, her voice soft and gentle. “But… I really think all men are  _that_ kind of guy.”

“That’s what I keep telling her.”

“I… don’t want a fling.” She watches as Rose and Mal exchange a look, and she sighs. “What?”

“Who says it has to be a fling?” Mal asks. “I’ve  _seen_ the way he looks at you. He’s interested.”

“You’ve seen him?” Rose asks, perking up a little. “What’s he like?”

“He’s British.”

Regina sighs. “He’s  _gorgeous_ —dark blonde hair with a little gray at the temples, blue eyes, dimples—”

“Oh—”

“And he lights up when he looks at her.”

Rose grins. “How do you know?”

“We saw him at the post office,” Regina says. “I was sending a postcard to Henry and—”

“And at the department store when we were getting sheets. He was looking at  _silk_ sheets, and I swear to god,” Mal says, nodding to Regina, “she looked like she wanted to jump him.”

“I did not.”

“Oh, my god, you absolutely did.”

“Well,” Rose murmurs. “Silk sheets usually means—”

“He didn't buy them,” Regina sighs. “They were on sale. He looked at them, and  _yes_ , I find him attractive, but—”

Rose’s eyes narrow. “I think you should ask him to come over for dinner. Make him a lasagna and see where the night—”

“I don’t have his number.”

“Google it. How many men named Robin could there be in—”

“I’m  _not_ doing that.”

Mal laughs. “Rose, is this the first time you’ve had the pleasure of seeing Regina’s obstinate, stubborn side?”

“I think so,” Rose grins.

“I know you both mean well, but I am not going to fall into bed with the first man I’m attracted to. Did you notice how many panic attacks I had just redoing a couple of rooms in my house? I’m not ready to… to redo my life.” She frowns as she exhales a breath, and once more that achy feeling returns to her chest. “I… I couldn’t even pick out tile for my bathroom. I couldn’t decide which I liked.”

“But you said you love what you picked.”

She nods. “Now, yeah, but—” For a moment, her eyes press closed, giving her a second to collect her thoughts and choose her words. This isn’t about tile and it’s not about Robin. It’s about  _her_. “I… I don’t even  know who I am anymore,” she says finally as she opens her eyes. “I’ve been a part of a couple since I was seventeen. I don’t know who I am without Daniel, and I never thought I’d have to figure that out. But I do, and… and I owe it to myself to figure that out before… involving anyone else.”

Rose and Mal both exchange looks, and for a while, neither says anything.

Finally, Mal breaks the silence. “Okay. Fine. I’ll admit, you have a fairly decent point.”

“Thank you.”

Rose laughs gently. “We just… we want you to be happy and—”

“I know.”

“So… let’s refocus all of this,” Mal says, biting into her pizza. “Let’s… take advantage of the time you have this summer and… figure out how you do that.”

Regina’s brow arches. “I’m going to find myself in a handful of weeks? Isn’t that, like… a life-long journey or—”

“It won’t happen all at once,” Mal says, cutting in. “But you’ve gotta start somewhere.”

“I thought redoing my—”

“But you did that because you  _had_ to,” Mal says. “You’d have never redone those rooms had your mother’s contractor not fucked up your bathroom.”

Rose nods. “I like where this is going.”

“You do?” Regina asks, her brows rising. “Because it’s scaring the hell out of me.”

“All I’m suggesting is that you do something for  _you_. Go somewhere that  _you_ want to go. Do something and make some memories that don’t involve Daniel.” She pauses. “Or Henry for that matter. For a few weeks, you’re not anyone’s wife and you’re not someone’s mom—”

“Ouch.”

“It’s temporary.”

“I know, but… I  _like_ being Henry’s mom.”

“Of course you do,” Rose says. “But—”

“But that’s not  _all_ you are,” Mal tells her as a grin twists onto her lips. “Where is somewhere that you’ve always wanted to visit, but Daniel never wanted to go? Somewhere Henry wouldn’t want to go.”

“London.”

Rose’s brows arch. “That was quick.”

“I went with my parents when I was sixteen, and I would  _love_ to go back.” She smiles a bit wistfully, that achy feeling returning to her chest. “I… tried to get Daniel to take me a couple of years ago for our anniversary.” She frowns. “He told me he doesn’t like rain.”

“But—”

“I know,” Regina says, laughing softly. “He wasn’t a fan of… travelling abroad.”

“Okay,” Mal says. “Let’s see how much plane tickets would be.”

“Oh, I don’t—” Her voice halts as Rose picks up her phone and starts to type. “The Globe Theatre is putting on a production of  _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_  and—”

Mal’s brows arch as Rose looks up from her phone. “You… just know that?” Mal asks. “You can just rattle off plays that are currently playing at The Globe.”

Regina shrugs. “I… signed up for a mailing list when I was trying to convince Daniel that we should go. I just never unsubscribed.”

“Ah—”

“You know, you can go on a tour that takes you to all of these sites where movies were filmed and—”

Regina laughs. “There’s a whole tour dedicated to  _Downton Abbey_.”

Rose blinks. “Can I come?”

Regina grins and shrugs. “I wouldn’t mind a travel buddy to—”

“No,” Mal cuts in. “You can’t take my wife. If you want a travel buddy, you’ll have to find your own. You can’t have mine.”

Rose blinks. “But what if  _I_ want to—”

“You’re not going without me,” Mal says, shaking her head and taking her phone. “Especially not to the  _Downton Abbey_  house.” Regina giggles as Rose pouts and Mal bristles as she taps at the screen. “I’m sorry. That’s my line in the sand.”

Rose shrugs. “Sorry, Regina. I tried.”

“I appreciate that. Really, I do. My hypothetical trip won’t be the same without you.”

“You know, you could always… find someone once you’re there.”

Regina blinks. “Find someone...”

“Yes,” Mal says, a devilish little grin twisting onto her lips. “Maybe someone local, who… could take you back to his apartment and—”

“Mal, this isn’t some cheesy romance novel or spiritual journey where I—”

Mal sighs, shaking her head as her eyes roll as she takes Rose’s phone and starts scrolling. “You are the only person I know who complains about nice orgasms that you don’t have to give yourself.”

“I’m not complaining,” Regina says, sighing as her eyes widen and she looks between Mal and Rose. “This is all hypothetical, orgasms and all. There’s no reason to—”

“Actually… it’s… not,” Mal says slowly.

“Excuse me?”  
  


“I… might’ve just bought you a plane ticket to London.”

“Mal!”

“Okay, first of all,” Mal says, making a poor attempt to stifle her laugh. “You can’t be mad at someone who just bought you a plane ticket.”

Regina’s eyes widen and her jaw drops. “Are you insane?”

“Okay, it was under five-hundred for—”

“That’s too much. And we were just—”

“It’s done,” Mal says simply. “The only thing you have left to decide is if you want to stay in a hotel or rent—”

“I can’t believe this.”

“Oh, come on, Regina,” Rose says gently. “It’ll be fun to get away and… see a play and—”

“And pick up some hot guy who—”

“No. No men. I’m taking a break from men.”

Mal’s eyes roll. “Fine. I’m sure you can find some hot British girl who’d happily spend an evening between your thighs.”

Regina’s eyes sink closed as Rose gently reminds Mal that this is Regina’s vacation, not hers.

Admittedly, all of what Mal’s suggested sounds completely wonderful. But instead of some random, hot British girl, she finds her thoughts drifting to Robin, and actively has to push them away. It’s not fair to herself to let herself fantasize about something she can’t have.

“So… when do I leave?” she asks, resigned to the idea and also feeling a little excitement bubbling up from her core. “If I  _have_ to go, I want to plan a few things.”

Mal scoffs. “If you  _have_ to go.”

“You leave on Wednesday.”

Regina’s eyes widened and her stomach drops. “That’s in…”

“Less than forty-eight hours.”

A grin twists onto Mal’s lips as she rises and sets her plate on the table before reaching out and pulling Regina up, too. “Come on. We have less than a day to pack.”

Regina lets out a labored sigh as she lets Mal pull her toward the stairs—but no matter how much she protests, she can’t deny that she’s excited about this, and by the time she reaches the stairs, she has a list of attractions she wants to see ranging from the usual must-see sites to a few favorite spots from her last trip to a handful of places from favorite TV shows and movies.

“How long am I staying?”

“That’s the best part,” Mal says, grinning back at her as she tugs her toward her bedroom. “It’s a one-way ticket. You can stay as long as you want, return when you want, and go wherever in between.”

_____

Robin stuffs his hands into his pocket as he watches Roland drag his red suitcase through the line and he beams when the lady behind the counter hands him his plane ticket, proudly exclaiming to her that he can’t wait to get to Disney.

“You’re going to Disney?” he hears her say. “How fun! Which parks?”

“All of them!” Roland exclaims. “But Magic Kingdom first.”

“Oh, that  _is_  fun!”

“Yup. My mom said I can get Mickey ears there  _and_ ride Splash Mountain.”

“Oh wow! Are you tall enough for that? That ride can be kind of scary for little kids.”

In spite of himself, Robin chuckles as Roland’s face screws up and he looks at the woman like she has three heads. “Yeah. I looked it up. I’m tall enough.”

Marian says something that he can’t quite hear, and finally, she turns Roland away from the counter, making a face that, once upon a time, would’ve made him laugh. Once more, Robin grits his teeth and puts on a smile as Roland runs toward him, waving his plane ticket.

“Dad! Look! It has my name on it!” Roland yells as he nears. “Isn’t that cool?”

“Sure is,” Robin says, dropping his eyes to Roland and ignoring Marian as she walks toward them. “Let’s see it.” He crouches down and examines the ticket. “ _And_ you got a window seat!”

“Is that good?”

“It’s the  _best_ ,” he explains. “You get to watch the clouds and—”

Roland’s eyes widen a little. “We have to fly in clouds.”

“Yeah,” Robin says, chuckling softly. “It’s really co—”

“What if we hit birds!?”

Robin blinks. “That’s… not going to happen.”

“But—”

“The birds will hear the plane coming a mile away and get out of the way.”

Roland chews at his lips. “That’s what Mom said about squirrels.”

“I didn’t hit it,” Marian says, bristling as Robin looks up at her. “I just… had to swerve.”

“She almost took out two garbage cans and someone’s mailbox.”

“Oh. Great,” he murmurs, trying to find some sort of fault in what sounds like a random incident that he couldn’t really blame her for. “That’s… fantastic.”

“I think  _almost_ is the key word,” Marian says, squaring her shoulders and drawing in a breath. “And the squirrel was fine.”

“She was speeding.”

“Oh, even better,” Robin mutters, looking away. “That’s perfect.”

“I was going twenty-eight in a twenty-five, relax.”

“Mmm—”

“So, what’s the first thing you want to do when you get to Magic Kingdom?” Marian asks, draping her arm around Roland’s shoulder and pulling him back against her legs—and he can’t help but notice the way Roland stiffens and shrugs his shoulders. “We could—”

“I guess the first thing we’ll have to do is wait in line to go in,” Roland tells her, frowning.

“Well, I mean—”

“Can I go look out the window?” Roland asks, interrupting. “I want to see if I can see any planes taking off from here.”

“You know, the best place to do that is the terminal. It’s right by—”

“Can I just see if I can see anything from here?”

Marian sighs and nods, and Roland runs off ahead of them. Robin stands, stuffing his hands into his pockets and turning his back to Marian. He watches as Roland climbs onto a bench, awkwardly craning his neck to see past the drop-off circle.

“He doesn't want to leave you.”

Blinking, Robin turns his head. “What?”

“He told me that we can’t go back to the terminal because we’ll have to leave you. We have to wait as long as we can.”

“Oh—”

“He’s mad at me.”

“You’re taking him to Disney, I doubt—”

“That’s why I’m taking him.”

Now, Robin turns fully toward Marian, his brow furrowing. “Well, I have to admit that of  _all_ the weeks you could’ve picked—”

“I couldn’t get next week off work, and the sale would’ve been over after two more weeks. It’s only good for this month. It  _had_ to be this week or it couldn’t be at all.”

“Well, you’ve waited seven years for—”

“Robin—”

“Look, this sucks, okay? We were supposed to do this together. It was supposed to be our family vacation. It was supposed to be  _our_ thing with him, not just yours.”

“I know that.”

“So, you—”

Marian bristles, looking past him and focusing on Roland who’s still kneeling on the bench, but focused on watching a conveyor belt moving luggage. “Can we… grab some coffee? There’s a Starbucks kiosk—”

“I’m not thirsty.”

“We could just sit or grab a sand—”

“I’m good here.”

Marian’s eyes roll. “Look, I know you hate me now, but—”

“I don’t hate you. That’s actually part of the problem. If I hated you, all of this would be a hell of a lot easier.”

Frowning, Marian nods. “I know this has been hard—”

“Has it? Because—”

“Robin, none of this has been easy on me. I hate myself for what I did to you, and so does Roland.”

He blinks. “Roland—”

“Hates me.”

Sighing, Robin shakes his head. “No, he doesn't. He—”

“I’m using his words. When I came to pick him up the last time you had him, he… laid into me in the car. He blames me for not seeing you as much as he wants and he blames me for—”

“He has a point.”

“I know he does.”

“So, your solution to Roland wanting to spend more time with me is to take him away for the weekend that he’s supposed to spend with me?”

Marian’s head falls forward, and her fingers press to her brow. He can see that she’s struggling and he feels a mix of emotions. There’s a part of him that wants to reach out and take her hand and tell her it’ll be alright and there’s a part of him that wants to laugh and tell her she brought all of this on herself. But neither of those things feel right, so he goes with the middle road.

“He’ll… get used to it. It’s still new.”

Marian nods. “Maybe.”

“He’s seven. He’s not fully in control of his emotions and he doesn't have the control to explain—”

“No,” Marian says, shaking her head. “He knows exactly how he feels about our divorce. He told me it was selfish to put my happiness in front of everyone else’s, that it wasn’t fair that for me to be happy the two of you had to be miserable.” She shrugs and he can’t help but notice the tears welling in her eyes. “He… told me that when he looks at me, it makes him angry.”

Robin swallows. He can’t imagine Roland saying any of those things, and he can’t imagine how much it would hurt to hear them. He wants to say something kind, but he can’t quite find the words because the hurtful ones his son used mirror the way he feels about this whole situation. “So, you’re… buying his love back with a trip to Disney?”

“No—”

“Really?” He asks, his brow arching. “Because—”

“I just want to give him some happy memories of… of just the two of us.”

“Is that why your girlfriend isn’t here?”

Marian’s arms fold. “Yes.”

“So, you’re just going to gloss over—”

“No, I’m not glossing over anything, Robin. I’m just… I’m just trying to show him that—”

“That you love him enough to take him to Disney?”

“No!” Marian sighs and looks away, and he can tell that she’s struggling not to cry. “I just want to do something that’s just the two of us… that’s just me and him. I want to take him somewhere he loves and build new experiences that… that he’ll look back on and smile about. I want to laugh with him and take silly pictures in mouse ears and let him make fun of me when I cry like a baby on Space Mountain.” Taking a breath she looks back at him. “I can’t change what happened between us, and I think one day you’ll agree that our break up was the best thing for both of us—”

“Is that your way of—”

“No. Damn it. This isn’t supposed to be a fight.” Her jaw tightens and once again, she looks like she’s on the verge of tears. “Were you really happy with me, Robin? Or were you just comfortable?”

He’s glad that he doesn't have to reply to that as Roland comes running back to them, rattling on and on about how he watches a bunch of guys separating luggage by taking it from a long conveyor belt and tossing it into big carts. He asks a million questions about the job, and as Roland goes on and on about it, Robin can’t help but notice that he doesn’t once look at his mother.

And no matter his own feelings about Marian and their divorce, it bothers him seeing the cold shoulder Roland’s giving to Marian.

“Hey, buddy,” he murmurs, crouching down. “Your mom wants to grab a cup of coffee. Why don’t we all go sit at the kiosk and get something? We can plan out all the stuff you're going to do.”

Roland considers it, then nods.

Robin takes him by the hand and the three of them walk toward the little Starbucks kiosk. Roland climbs into one of the metal chairs while he and Marian go to order, and when he orders Roland a strawberry frappuccino, Marian’s brows arch disapprovingly. She makes a comment about the amount of sugar in the drink and he rolls his eyes, reminding her that if she can buy Roland’s affection with a trip to Disney, he can do the same with a Starbucks drink.

She scoffs, but nods her approval, gritting her teeth as Robin orders it with extra whipped topping.

They join Roland at the table, and already, Roland has the Disney World site up on Robin’s phone. For awhile, things feel completely normal. Roland rattles off the names of rides he definitely wants to go on, and Robin helps him to pick out a route around the park to maximize time. Marian writes it all down, laughing when Roland makes it a priority to get a Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream, confessing he’s always wanted to try them. Robin laughs, too, and reminds him that it’s only regular vanilla ice cream covered in chocolate, and in a very serious voice Roland reminds him that it’s Mickey-shaped, as if that somehow will change the taste.

“I hate to say this,” Marian says, after awhile, “But we have to be getting to our terminal.”

“Daddy can’t come to the terminal?”

Robin swallows as he looks to his son, his chest aching. “No, I can’t go back there without a ticket.”

Roland frowns. “Oh.”

“Okay,” Robin says, standing up and putting on a smile. “Let’s make sure you’re ready.”

Roland grins. “I am.”

“You are not,” Robin tells him, laughing softly, and as Roland’s brow furrows, Robin scoops him up, twisting him around in his arms and peppering his cheeks with kisses. Marian laughs as she rises, grabbing Roland’s drink. Finally, when Roland’s red-faced and wheezing, Robin tips him back upright and sets him down—and from the corner of his eye, he thinks he spots  _her_.

He looks up, searching the crowd—and Marian notices, following his gaze.

“Are… you looking for someone?”

“No, I just… I thought I saw someone.”

“Who?” Roland asks, craning his neck as he looks at the crowd near the security checkpoint.

“Um, just this…. this woman I know.”

Marina’s brow arches. “This woman you know?” A grin tugs up at the corner of her mouth. “Like…”

“No,” Robin cuts in. “Not like that.”

“Oh—”

“Like what?” Roland asks, looking back to him, his eyes wide and innocent.

“I met his lady and… we run into each other all of the time,” he says simply. “Granny’s, the gas station, the grocery store, the post-office.”

“And the airport!”

Robin chuckles softly, again looking toward security. But he doesn't see Regina anywhere. “Maybe… but maybe not.”

Roland giggles. “That’s like Waldo.”

Robin blinks. “Who?”

“Where’s Waldo!”

“Those books in the pediatrician's office,” Marian says, clarifying. “You know, you have to find the little guy with the—”

“The striped sweater,” Robin says, remembering and laughing. “Yeah, she’s… she’s kind of like that.”

“That’s so cool!” Roland tells him. “What does she look like? Does she wear a funny sweater or hat?”

“No,” he says, chuckling softly. “She’s... she’s pretty. She has—” Marian’s brow arches and she grins. “Big brown eyes and dark hair to about her shoulders, and—” He laughs, shaking his head. “It’s not really important though.”

“It  _sounds_ important,” Marian says, still grinning.

Robin’s eyes roll and his cheeks warm slightly. “Okay, buddy,” he says, turning back to Roland. “You’ve gotta go now, but I know you’re going to have the  _best_ time in Disney.”

“I wish  _you_ were going, too.”

Robin nods and takes a breath. If he’s being perfectly honest, he wishes he were going, too. For so long he’s imagined what it’d be like taking Roland to Disney for the first time and watching his son take it all in; but admitting that won’t help Roland, and no matter what he feels toward Marian, he doesn't want to project those feelings onto Roland. It’s not fair—it’s not fair to any of them.

“You and your mom are going to have a blast.”

Roland shrugs. “I guess.”

“And you two going to have to do  _everything_ , so that when you and I go, you can show me all your favorites—your favorite rides and gift shops and places to eat and characters to go and see.” He grins as he watches Roland’s eyes widen at the realization that there’s potentially a second Disney trip in the works. “Can you do that?”

“Yeah, I can.”

“Okay, good,” he says, taking a breath as he stands back up, glancing briefly to Marian then back to Roland. “Send me a picture when you get those mouse ears, okay?”

“I will.”

“Okay,” Robin says, reaching for Roland and hugging him into his side, reminding him that he loves him and that he wants him to have a good time with his mom—and then, a few minutes later, Marian and Roland are in line at one of the security checkpoints. He watches as Roland sets his backpack into a bin, carefully pulling out his tablet and putting it next to the backpack as Marian bends to untie his shoes. Then, they round the bend and disappear into the crowd.

He stands there for a moment, feeling a little lost and feeling things he can’t quite describe. It’s a mix of contradicting feelings that are difficult to sort. Marian’s question keeps repeating, asking him if he was only comfortable in their life together. He’d never considered that and it never occurred to him, but now that he is considering it, it annoys him that he can’t seem to answer it. The answer to a question like that should be easy and clear, but for him, it’s muddled and that bothers him.

His phone vibrates in his pocket and he laughs to find a text from Roland explaining that he’s already spotted five pretty ladies with dark hair—and as he returns the phone to his pocket, he feels that aching feeling in his chest again, the feeling he gets whenever he remembers that he won’t be spending this weekend with his son, that he’ll be all alone in his empty apartment or drinking away his feelings at John’s bar.

He knows that nothing he had planned for Roland that weekend can’t be done the following weekend, but he wonders if he’ll ever be used to feeling like a part-time parent or how shitty that makes him feel. Again, Marian’s question plays in the back of his head, making him bristle and wonder if this is how the next five days will be and how he’s going to manage to distract himself.

He turns away from the kiosk, tossing his unfinished cup of coffee into the garbage, his eyes focusing on a woman standing behind the ticket counter, tapping her fingers on the counter. She looks bored, like she’s just waiting for someone to walk up to get their tickets. As he walks toward the exit, he keeps an eye on her, still mulling how he’ll keep himself busy this weekend, and almost subconsciously, he finds himself drifting toward the counter.

For a moment, he stands there, just staring at the woman behind the counter, debating just how crazy it would be to get out of town for the week, to go anywhere else other than his lonely little apartment.

Chuckling softly, he approaches the counter. “Do you have… anything to anywhere leaving in the next hour?”

She blinks, “Um… literally anywhere?”

Robin nods. “Yeah. I don’t care. I just… I don’t want to go home.” The woman frowns, and he can’t tell if he sounds spontaneous or pathetic, but he also doesn’t care. “I’ll go anywhere.”

“Domestic or international?”

“It’s doesn't matter.”

“Do you have your passport?”

Robin pats his hand to the satchel resting on his hip. “I carry it always”

“Oh, that’s…” She stops, just shy of telling him it's strange. “I’ll see what we have.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

.

“Well,” she says slowly, looking from him to the computer screen in front of her. “Everything that leaves within the hour is booked, but in two hours I have a flight to—”

“I’ll take it.”

A little laugh escapes her. “You… really don’t care where you’re going?”

A tight grin edges across his face. He doesn't want to explain. “How much do I owe you?” he asks, reaching behind himself and pulling his wallet from his satchel to retrieve a credit card. “Any chance there’s a window seat left?”

“Um, yes,” the woman nods as he holds out his credit card, not waiting for the price and not really caring to hear it.

The woman swipes his card and he signs for the purchase, taking the ticket as he hands her back the receipt and he chuckles softly, wondering if his British accent is the reason the woman chose to send him to London, but at the same time, he doesn’t care. As he makes his way toward security, he decides he’s going to do exactly what he asked Roland to do and make a list of all the things he does and tries, and maybe one day, he’ll be able to use that list to plan a vacation with his son—something they’ll be able to experience together, just the two of them.

______

Regina frowns as she looks around the crowded terminal.

Almost all the seats are taken, and unless she wants to sandwich herself between two old men or sit in the middle of what appears to be a boys’ travel baseball team, she’s going to have to stand for the next hour.

Frowning, she looks down at her feet, wondering what the hell she was thinking when she slipped her feet into her favorite pair of heels that morning. Mal laughed at her when she’d picked her up and she’d bristled as she’d explained that these were some of the most comfortable shoes she owned and she’d have no problem running across a crowded airport in them or standing outside of Heathrow trying to catch a cab.

But after ten minutes, she was antsy; though she was certain that feeling had far more to do with the fact that she was about to board a plane alone to go on a vacation by herself.

And possibly because just as she arrived at the airport, Henry had called her.

He was having fun in Montana with Daniel, but he missed his Xbox and his TV and wifi that didn’t cut out every ten minutes. The more he explained what he’d been doing, the less fun it sounded like he was having, and before she hung up, he confessed that he couldn’t wait to come home.

It was a small victory and she promised to make him a big dinner of all his favorites when he returned home, but nonetheless, she had to resist the urge to trade her ticket to London for one that would take her to Montana. Mal reminded her that, as much as they hated it, it was good for Henry to spend some time with his dad, and she conceded that that was true, and it was probably good for him to disconnect for awhile and get some fresh air—and then she giggled softly to herself as she remembered that Henry said that everything around them smelled like horse poop.

She wanders away from the terminal toward the bar, deciding a glass of wine will make her feel better, or at least less anxious, and she’s glad to find it not very crowded.

She sits down and orders a glass of Shiraz, then closes her eyes as she waits for it, drawing in long and deliberate breaths, reminding herself that the coming week will be fun and if it’s not there’s nothing stopping her from flying home.

“Regina?” Her eyes fly open, widening at the sight of Robin, standing a bit awkwardly at her table. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, no, you didn’t. Just… I… what are you doing here?”

He chuckles softly. “Funny story, actually.”

“Do you… want to sit and tell me?” Nodding, he pulls out a chair and she laughs. “I mean,  _of course_  I would run into you at the airport. After all, I run into you everywhere else.”

“I know,” he nods, grinning as his dimples sink into his cheeks. “It makes me wonder just how many times our paths have crossed and we didn’t even know it.”

She smiles. She’s wondered that a thousand times herself.

“I was dropping off my ex-wife and my son. They’re going to Disney.”

“That was nice of you.”

“Well, if I wanted to see my son this week, that was my only option.”

She frowns. “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be,” he's quick to say. “When they get back, I get him for two long weekends in a row.”

“Something tells me you are trying  _very_ hard to look on the bright side and make the best of this.”

“Am I that transparent?”

A grin tugs up at the corner of her mouth, knowing he’ll understand. “I just spent the last hour grinning like an idiot as my son told me how much fun he was having with his dad. He wasn’t even here and I felt like I had to pretend I was glad to hear that.” Robin chuckles and nods. “Then I felt like a complete asshole when it seemed things weren’t as rosy and wonderful in Montana as they seemed when the conversation first started.”

“I… could’ve cheered and ran a victory lap around the airport when I found out that my ex is only taking Roland to Disney because he “ _hates her now’_.” He sighs as a waitress brings her glass of wine to the table, asking him if he wants something. His eyes slowly met hers and she offers a half of a nod before he orders a beer, waiting for the waitress to leave before adding. “And then I felt like an absolute jackass about thirty seconds later.”

“You’re hardly a jackass.”

Robin shrugs. “I can’t help but think that my mood over the last few months has colored his feelings toward his mother.”

“Or, he’s just looking at the situation and seeing it for what it is.”

Robin considers it and shrugs. “He misses me.”

“That’s such a double-edged sword, isn’t it? Being glad that your kid misses you, but at the same time hating that they’re sad.”

“Yeah—”

“One of the lovely fallouts of divorce.”

“Mm,” he says, nodding and grinning as the waitress sets his beer down. “The constant guilt is… exhausting.”

“It is,” she agrees. “Almost as exhausting as the loneliness.”

“That’s why I’m here, actually,” he confesses. “I just… I couldn't go home.”

“It’s hard walking into an empty house.”

“Or in my case, an apartment that I hate.”

“Still doesn't feel like home?”

“No,” he sighs, “But it almost looks like one, now.”

“Has Roland seen it?”

“Not yet. That was supposed to be tomorrow. I was going to surprise him with his new room and… a functional living space.” He makes a sound that’s something between a scoff and a laugh, and she frowns—she can almost feel his pain. “Though, who knows, maybe he won’t like it. Maybe he’ll miss being able to play t-ball in the living room.”

Regina's eyes widen at that. “What?”

“I… took a while getting furniture. We had a big open space and—”

“And boys will be boys, no matter the age,” she supplies, chuckling softly to herself. “I think my son would  _love_ that.”

Robin nods. “We had fun, I’ll admit it.”

“But—”

“When he wasn’t there it was… empty, in a lot of ways.”  
  


“Yeah,” she murmurs, sipping her wine and nodding. She understands that feeling; she’s felt it since she came home after putting Henry on a plane to Montana. “So, you’re getting away.”

“Yeah,” he says, laughing softly. “I… I bought a ticket to anywhere.”

She blinks. “Anywhere—”

“Anywhere but here.”

“Oh,” she breathes out. “That… makes me anxious. I’m about to set out on a hastily-planned trip and I’m anxious about  _that_. I can’t imagine, just… leaving with…” Her voice trails off and her eyes widen. “Nothing. You  have  _nothing_ with you.”

“No,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “Just a plane ticket and the clothes on my back.”

“Oh my god—”

“I take it you’re a planner.”

“Yes, and I assume you’re not?”

He sighs. “I used to be, but my plans never got me much, so…. I’m trying something new.”

“So, you have… no idea where you’re staying or—”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“Robin, you don’t even have a toothbrush! That’s… so unhygenic.”

“I suppose I don’t have one,” he says easily. “But the fantastic thing is that they sell them where I’m going.” Regina’s eyes widen and even though none of this affects her, she feels her heart beating a little faster and her mouth is going dry as—and as he tells her he’s sure he can find a hostel to stay in or somewhere to camp, she shakes her head, telling herself that she’s finally found this man’s flaw.

Then, as he chuckles softly and shrugs, she can’t help but find all of this completely endearing.

“Come on,” she says, reaching across the table and grabbing him by the wrist. “You’re going to be on a plane for—” She stops. “I don’t even know, but—”

“About twelve hours.”

“And you have  _nothing_.”

He laughs as she stands up, tugging at his wrist, pulling him up, too. “And where, might I ask, are we going?”

“Shopping.”

“We’re in an airport.”

“That,  _fortunately_ , has stores where—”

“Everything is  _so_ overpriced.”

“And worth every penny for the convenience,” she tells him, pulling him out of the bar and toward the little pharmacy. “And fortunately, I’ve got about forty-five minutes to kill.”

“So, you’re spending it shopping with me? A practical stranger?”

She blinks as her eyes meet his, finding them soft and kind, and sparkling. “You’re not a stranger.”

“No,” he says, nodding. “I suppose I’m not.”

Smiling, she reaches for two packages of toothpaste. “Mint or cinnamon?”

His brow furrows as he looks at the packages, then back to her. “I know I might sound completely irresponsible to you and possibly a bit delusional, but I am not a heathen.” He reaches for one of the packages. “I’ll take the mint.”

At that, she can’t help but laugh. “You have  _very_ strong opinions on toothpaste.”

“And you don’t?”

Her brow arches and her lip catches between her teeth. “I have strong opinions about a lot of things.”

“Something tells me,” he says, grinning as he chooses a toothbrush. “I’ll enjoy hearing about them.”

A grin twists onto her lips and she feels a fluttering in her chest—is he flirting with her? “Well,” she murmurs. “I’m glad you chose a brush with bristles that weren’t soft.” Robin blinks and looks down at the brush. “Firm is good. You have strong gums.”

“Is… dental health important to you?”

“It should be important to everyone.”

A grin twists onto his lips. “You’re the mom who sets a timer for her kid when he brushes his teeth, aren’t you?”

“I ration Halloween candy, too.”

“Brutal.”

He’s smiling now, not just grinning as they make their way around the little store, picking up toiletries, gum and some snacks. They both laugh when they each reach for the same bag of Skittles, and she remembers the first night they met when he reached for her drink—and, of course, that leads to a flood of memories of everything that happened afterward. Her cheeks warm and she’s glad he doesn’t notice, and that by the time he turns back to her, she’s regained her composure.

He opens the bag of Skittles by tearing off the corner, dumping a few into his palm, the holding them out to her. She nods and he pours some into her hand and asks where they're headed to next, and after a quick glance at her watch, she points to an electronic store.

They pick out a portable battery pack and then they move toward the earbuds. He grabs a cheap pair, offering a shrug and a grin as he reminds her that his old school country playlist will sound the same on either the cheap ones and the expensive, and he feigns offense when she scrunches her nose.

They buy a pillow at a kiosk—the one purchase he can’t stuff into his satchel— as they start moving back toward the terminal and he offers her another palm full of Skittles, and as they approach a little bookstore, he wanders in, looking back over his shoulder and waiting for her to follow.

For a handful of minutes, they browse the small collection of only three small shelves. A smile draws onto her lips as he moves toward the classics, jauntily choosing a copy of  _Call of the Wild_ and moving toward the checkout. She sneaks a glance at her watch, sighing regretfully at the time.

“You… have to get to your terminal, don’t you?”

She nods. “I do.”

“Well, then, can I walk you back?” She nods again and grins as he dumps the last of the Skittles into her palm. “You’re just trying to get out of having to listen to my country playlist, aren’t you? You knew it was coming.”

“Guilty,” she laughs, feeling an odd pang of guilt. “I bought  _this_ particular ticket  _knowing_ that I’d run into you and  _knowing_ you’d have terrible taste in music.’

“Terrible is a really strong word.”

“It is, and it’s appropriate.” As they near the bar his pace slows, and as she looks across to her terminal, it’s still jam-packed. “And  _that_ does not bode well for my flight.”

“Do you at least get a window?”

Regina frowns. “No. My best friend booked the flight, and… I think she got a little too excited over the price. She didn't look at anything else.”

“Well, then I hope you’ve got a good book.”

A smirk edges onto her lips. “And a playlist that won’t make me want to claw out my eyes.”

“Hey—”

She fidgets, not wanting to leave. “This was… surprisingly fun.”

“It was,” he agrees. “I thought the most exciting part of my afternoon would be checking out the list of craft beers.” He smiles and her breath catches when he reaches out and takes her hand, giving it a soft squeeze. “This was a  _much_ better way to pass the time.”

“I’d say we should do this again, but—”

“Oh, you don’t usually hang out in airports?”

“No, not usually.”

“Well, perhaps we’ll bump into each other again.”

“I hope so.”

“And I hope that it’s soon.”

“Me, too,” she admits, sighing as a flight attendant announces that her flight is starting to board. She frowns, looking back at the desk and watching as people begin to line up. “I should go…”

“And I should go and settle our bill.”

She blinks. “I—”

“We never paid.”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe—”

“It’s fine,” he assures her, I’ll go pay the bill and give the waitress a hefty tip, and… it’ll be fine.” She nods and they both look over and watch as the flight attendant again announces her flight and they stumble through an awkward goodbye. For a moment, she wonders if she should hug him and for a moment, it looks like he might hug her, but they both hesitate and the moment passes. They miss their chance. He thanks her for the last-minute help in getting some things together for his impromptu flight, and they wish each other safe travels, then with an awkward wave, he disappears into the airport bar.

Regina makes her way toward the terminal, getting into the line, and she watches a flight attendant starting to count passengers. Her brow furrows as the flight attendant says something to another, and suddenly the line halts. She feels an ache in her stomach as she watches the other attendant pick up the phone and she cranes her neck in vain, trying to hear.

And then, the announcement is made. Her flight is overbooked.

For a $400 Visa gift card—which she plans to give to Mal and Rose in exchange for paying for the flight—she allows the airline to move her to a later flight. After a short conversation about transferring her luggage, she sits back down in the nearly empty terminal to wait for her new ticket, and she pulls out her phone.

Smiling, she scrolls through a couple of texts from Henry, laughing softly at an all-caps  _HALLELUJAH_  to be at a café with free wifi followed by a screenshot of his favorite game and a heart drawn over it. She checks her other texts and her cheeks flush at a video from Mal and Rose, wishing her a safe flight and reminding her that there’s nothing wrong with a fling—and grinning, she looks toward the bar, wondering if Robin is still there.

When she has her ticket, she wanders over, frowning when she doesn't spot him, and it’s only then that she realizes she has no idea where he’s going, so she has no idea which terminal she might find him in.

Sliding onto a bar stool, she orders another glass of wine and texts Henry back, then snaps a picture of her wine and sends it to Mal.

Henry doesn’t reply, but Mal does, and she tells her about her hour with Robin in the airport. She grins at Mal’s reply and can nearly picture her wide, blue eyes and slack jaw as she questions what the odds are that she and Robin both ended up at the same airport on the same day.

Finally, when it’s nearly time to board, she downs the last of her wine and tosses down enough money to cover the wine and a generous tip, then slowly makes her way to the terminal. Passengers are already lined up and the line moves slowly. Finally, she and her carry-on make it to the front of the line and they scan her ticket. She quickly takes a look at the ticket, checking her seat and aisle number, then shoves the ticket into her bag before proceeding down the long corridor to the plane.

She sighs as the line of people move even more slowly as people arrange their carry-ons into the overhead bins.

“Regina!?”

Blinking, she looks up and around, spotting Robin a few rows away. He smiles brightly and waves as she counts the rows, then pulls out her ticket to double check her seat—and when she sees the number, she counts again. “I don’t believe this,” she mutters to herself.

“I thought your flight already left!”

“It did—”

“You missed it? Was it because of—”

“No, no, no,” she cuts in, grinning like an idiot as she shakes her head. “I got switched to a later flight.” His smile brightens. “I… I think I’m sitting next to you.”

At that, he laughs, watching as she inches closer. “I... I shouldn't be surprised, but… I am.”

Finally, she makes her way to the seat and he stands, helping her with her carry-on. “I… think this is the first time I’ve been glad to be stuck in a middle seat.”

“You could have the window if—”

Shaking her head, she grins. “No, I’m content where I am. Good company beats a good view, hands down.” Robin nods and slides back into the seat, and she follows suit—and once they’re both seated, they start to laugh. “You know,” she begins. “Since the night we met, I… I’ve wanted to know you better.”

Robin nods. “I think… maybe the universe agrees.”  
  


“Normally, I would roll my eyes at a comment like that, but—”

“Here we are.”

“Again.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, grinning—and once more, they both start to laugh, and as she buckles her safety belt and settles back in her seat, she can’t help but feel good about the coming days and where whatever  _this_ seems to be


End file.
